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THE 

PROBLEM  OF  GANGER 

OR 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANGY 

BY 
EUGENE  COLEMAN  SAVIDGE 

Member  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine,  New  York  Obstetrical  Society, 
American  Medical  Association,  New  York  State  Medical  Society, 
Society  Alumni  Roosevelt  Hospital,  and  Sloane  Hospital  for 
Women;   former  Ass't  Gynecologist,  Roosevelt  Hos- 
pital (O.P.D.);  former  Attending  Gynecologist, 
St.  Mark's  Hospital;  author  of  "The  Philo- 
sophy    of     Radio  -  Activity, "     "Un- 
classified Diseases,  or  The  Pro- 
longation of  Life,"  etc. 


Press  of 

WILLIAM  R.  JENKINS  COMPANY 

Sixth  Avenue  at  48th  Street 

New  York 


T^HE  limited  first  edition  of  this  work  has  not 
been  placed  on  sale,  but  sent  to  those  inter- 
ested in  this  subject. 

The  publishers  announce  a  second  edition  as 
soon  .as  suggestions  from  the  laboratories  and  re- 
views enable  the  author  to  arrange  it. 


Copyright,  1915 
By  Eugene  Coleman  Savidge 


All  Fights  Reserved 


PREFACE 

"This  march  of  antecedents,  in  cancer  has  formed  an 
intensely  interesting  chapter  in  my  line  of  special  study. 
For  fifteen  years  I  have  been  cautiously  insinuating  under 
the  notice  of  the  profession  discussion  of  many  minor  and 
detached  matters,  that  the  thus  printed  word  might  b 
used  in  presenting  an  entirely  new  system  of  approach  in 
medicine.  This  I  have  called  "Synthetical  Medicine,"  and 
have  published  in  the  Medical  Record,  April  7,  1906." 

Extract  from  paper  read  before  New  York  Academy  of 
Medicine  Section,  March  26,  ipo8. 

April  10,  1914,  The  American  Society  for 
the  Control  of  Cancer  held  its  second  meeting 
at  the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine.  Dr. 
Clement  Cleveland  presided,  and  the  speakers  were 
Dr.  William  J.  Mayo,  President  of  the  American 
Surgical  Association;  Mr.  Frederick  C.  Hoffman, 
Life  Insurance  statistical  expert;  Dr.  Francis  Car- 
ter Wood,  Director  of  the  George  Crocker  Re- 
search Laboratory,  and  Prof.  J.  Collins  Warren, 
President  of  the  Harvard  Cancer  Commission. 


3 


4  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

Briefly  stated,  the  dictum  of  this  recent  and  au- 
thoritative body  stands:     "Surgery  will  cure 

PRACTICALLY  ALL  MALIGNANCY  IF  ACTION  IS  TAKEN 
AT  THE  START;  SURGERY  IS  THEREFORE  ALWAYS 
FIRST,*  OTHER  MEASURES  SECOND." 

May  24,  1914,  The  Cornell  Cancer  Report, 
referred  to  later  in  these  pages,  was  also  made  be- 
fore the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine. 

October,  1914,  Bainbridge  published  a  book  re- 
viewing fully  the  knowledge  of  the  world  on  the 
subject  to  date. 

By  the  test  that  none  of  it  was  mentioned  in  this 
latest  book,  or  in  these  two  recent  and  authoritative 
meetings,  the  matter  contained  in  this  ?ketch  is  ori- 
ginal— or  useless. 

As  this  MS.  was  practically  cut  from  "The  Phi- 
losophy of  Radio- Activity" — as  encumbering  the 
pages  of  a  philosophical  formula,  though  closely 
related — what  follows  is  in  connection  with  the 
matter  contained  in  that  work. 


A  DEFINITION  OF  CANCER 
By  James  Ewing,  Professor  of  Pathology,  Cornell 
Medical  College,  in  The  New  York  Medical 
Record,  December  5,  1914: 
"Probably  the  best  definition  of  the  cancer  process  is 
'atypical  and  destructive  proliferation  of  epithelium.'    Yet 
many  well  known  forms  of  cancer  fail  to  meet  these  re- 
quirements and  it  becomes  necessary  to  analyze  the  process 
in  much  greater  detail  in  order  to  admit  many  malignant 
diseases  into  the  cancer  category.     This  analysis  requires 
the  recognition  of.  at  least  the  following  criteria  of  a  ma- 
lignant process:     (1)  Cellular  overgrowth  passing  beyond 
that  observed  in  other  processes  affecting  the  same  tissue ; 

(2)  atypical  qualities  of  the  cells,  metaplasia,  anaplasia; 

(3)  loss  of  polarity;  (4)  hereterotopia ;  (5)  desmoplastic 
properties;  (6)  local  invasive  and  destructive  properties; 
(7)  metastases.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  each  of  these 
characters  variations  in  degree  are  conceivable  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  are  commonly  observed  to  occur. 

Any  one  of  the  above  attributes  of  cancer  may  be  almost 
exclusively  represented  in  the  disease.  Excessive  cellular 
overgrowth  difficult  to  distinguish  from  a  physiological 
type  chiefly  characterizes  some  thyroid  cancers.  Atypical 
qualities  of  the  cells  are  the  only  safe  criteria  of  early  malig- 
nant papilloma  of  the  larynx.    Loss  of  polarity  is  the  chief 


6  PROBLEM  OF  CANCER 

feature  of  certain  large  alveolar  mammary  carcinomas  con- 
fined within  ducts.  A  pronounced  fibrosis  about  slightly 
altered  prostatic  alveoli  was  the  most  definite  feature  of 
a  fatal  case  of  prostatic  cancer  which  I  have  recently  studied. 
Local  invasive  and  destructive  properties  first  reveal  the 
beginnings  of  some  lymphosarcomas.  Distant  metastases 
are  the  chief  evidence  of  malignancy  in  the  peculiar  thyroid 
cancers  previously  mentioned.  Hence  the  diagnosis  of 
cancer  becomes  a  matter  of  judgment  as  to  the  significance 
of  any  one  or  all  of  the  above  features  that  may  be  com- 
bined in  any  one  cancer.  The  disease  is  not  always  one  and 
the  same  thing.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  progressive  proc- 
ess which  has  small  and  variable  beginnings  and  unfolds 
more  and  more  of  its  features  as  it  advances  to  a  fatal  is- 
sue. It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  the  significance  of 
precancerous  lesions  must  be  regarded.  From  this  stand- 
point such  lesions  may  be  defined  as  pathological  proc- 
esses which  show  some,  but  not  all,  of  the  structural  fea- 
tures which  characterize  fully  established  cancers  of  the 
affected  organ." 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  CANCER; 

or 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY 

I 
Malignancy  and  monstrosity  arise  from  re- 
inforcements   AND    INTERFERENCES    WHICH    AC- 
COMPANY THE  SELECTIVE  INVOLUTION  AND  EVOLU- 
TION OF  MATTER  AND  LIFE. 

The  cause  of  cancer  and  the  cure  of  cancer, 
per  se,  probably  will  never  be  found.  For  cancer, 
together  with  all  the  other  malignancies,  is  a  series 
of  processes,  and  not  a  well  denned  entity.  To  call 
epithelioma  of  the  face,  carcinoma  of  the  stomach, 
and  bone-marrow  myeloma,  the  same  process,  or 
the  same  disease,  is  "not  to  know  medicine." 

These  processes  have  a  common  factor,  malig- 
nancy. And  malignancy  is  the  result  of  molecular 
activities  which  may  be  studied  with  a  hope  of 
controlling  them.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  we 
may  ever  find  a  causing  germ  or  a  curative  juice. 
It  does,  however,  contradict  our  opening  statement 
to  this  extent:     In  the  conviction  of  the  writer,  a 


8  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

profound  study  of  the  basal  elements  of  life  will 
show  us  two  important  things :  ( 1 )  What  sub-com- 
ponent elements  are  fading  when  malignancy  is 
entered  upon;  (2)  where  and  how  we  may  prop 
this  faltering  sub-component,  when  we  have 
learned  a  single  process  of  differentiation  beyond 
our  present  equipment  of  knowledge.  Therefore, 
though  we  may  never  find  the  cause  of  cancer, 
some  of  its  causes  are  already  apparent. 

This  sketch  presumes,  therefore,  simply  to  point 
out  this  single  missing  process,  and  to  give  some 
hints  by  which  the  workers — more  capable  than 
the  writer — may  find  it,  if  it  is  ever  to  be  found. 
Hence  it  is  desirable  to  exclude  the  vast  bulk  of 
knowledge  gathered  on  the  subject  (as  yet  to  scant 
purpose),  and  to  focus  on  the  single  missing  proc- 
ess which  stands  between  us  and  the  goal  of  the 
whole  professional  world. 


It  is  remarkable  how  quickly  radium  cures  can- 
cers produced  by  the  X-ray.  If  radium  and  the 
X-ray,  respectively,  cure  some  cancers  and  cause 
some  cancers,  it  is  obviously  a  question  of  dosage; 
a  question  of  intra-atomic,  or  intra-molecular,  rein- 
forcement and  interference  which  we  do  at  hap- 
hazard, as  yet;  sometimes  reinforcing  the  right, 
sometimes  the  wrong,  entity  within  the  organism. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY       9 

If  the  radium  cures  the  X-ray  hurt  readily,  of 
course  we  have  implied  a  different  set  of  interfer- 
ences and  reinforcements  in  the  radium  from  those 
in  the  X-ray ;  and  here,  precisely,  is  a  point  whereat 
the  expert  may  reach  an  important  lead.  He  is 
already  able  to  screen  off  the  different  rays  of 
radium  and  deflect  them  with  magnets.  A  tabu- 
lated dosage  of  the  different  rays,  and  their  wave- 
lengths— with  a  corresponding  table  of  biological 
sub-components  needing  their  application — may  put 
humanity  under  lasting  obligation. 


What,  briefly  and  suggestively  only,  is  the  ex- 
cuse for  adding  more  printing  to  this  over-written 
subject?  A  new  view  for  which  the  writer  has 
tried  to  show  authorities  and  reasons  in  his  "The 
Philosophy  of  Radio- Activity."  He  will  try  to 
show,  in  the  form  of  sketch  and  diagram: 

(1)  The  sub-components  of  the  radio-active 
processes;  their  equilibrium;  the  laws  of  reinforce- 
ment and  interference  by  which  equilibrium  is 
turned  from  side  to  side;  and  the  resulting  radio- 
activity, with  its  light  and  color,  and  "hemolyzing" 
differences. 

(2)  The  reinforcements  and  interferences  in  bi- 
ology— by  selective  and  conjoined  cytolysis,  by 
hemolysis,  by  anaphylaxis,  by  differentiations  of 


10  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

tissue,  by  sex  differentiations — by  force  of  which 
life  and  evolution  have  proceeded. 

(3)  The  relation  between  the  sub-components 
of  the  radial  processes  and  the  biological  sub-com- 
ponents, by  which  form  and  mass,  proportion  and 
life,  as  well  as  monstrosity  and  malignancy,  are 
controlled. 

(4)  Thereby  putting  the  main  problems  in  the 
focus  of  the  attention  of  the  experts — who  have 
already  compassed  marvels  more  than  equalling 
the  solving  of  these. 


II 

The  Radial  Forces  and  their  Sub-Components. 

Again  referring  to  elaborations  in  "The  Phi- 
losophy of  Radio- Activity,"  intra-atomic  activi- 
ties were  thus  described: 

"Negative  electrons  rotate  around  the  positive 
center  of  an  atom  in  mutually  conserving  antag- 
onism until  an  appointed  time  brings  a  fractional 
violation  of  ratio,  when  an  explosion  liberates  an 
atom  of  helium,  and  a  new  ratio  is  established  for 
a  new  rhythm.  The  duration  before  the  explosion 
probably  marks  the  life  span  of  an  electron,  or  a 
sub-electron  factor." 

The  appointed  time  is  accented.  The  mathe- 
matical progression  is  also  accented.  Each  step 
down  the  line  of  transformations  is  by  a  subtrac- 
tion of  four  from  the  atomic  weight  of  the  pre- 
ceding. There  is  therefore  a  time  element  and  a 
mathematical  element. 

Biology  is  based  on  time,  and  connected  with  the 
solar  rhythm  through  the  gland  cycle  in  the  higher 
species.    Monstrosity  and  malignancy  are  violations 

11 


12  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

of  mass,  form,  time :  but  they  have  their  own  math- 
ematics and  their  own  appointed  times.  Only  a 
few  of  these  are  known.  For  example,  Ordway 
claims  that  the  transmission  of  cancer  to  other 
parts  from  the  original  growth  occurs  uniformly 
on  the  thirty-ninth  day,  in  the  Japanese  mouse. 

The  mathematics  of  infinitesimal  fractions  of 
duration  are  now  well  understood  in  the  physical 
sciences,  and  they  are  used  in  daily  routine  to  de- 
termine the  nature  of  substances. 

No  one  now  marvels  at  spectroscopic  identities, 
some  of  which  are  based  upon  a  velocity  as  high 
as  800  million  millions  of  vibrations  per  second. 
For  example,  the  alkaloids  of  plants  have  their 
readiest  identity  by  means  of  the  spectroscope.  Each 
plant  essence,  of  those  studied,  has  its  known  lines. 
Each  cell  sub-component  of  each  of  these  plants, 
therefore,  must  have  a  syntonism  with  lines  in  the 
spectrum  which  is  invariable  and  as  eternally  con- 
stant as  mathematics.* 


*The  spectroscopic  constancy  of  the  alkaloid  implies  a  similar 
constancy  in  the  animal  cell  "essences."  I  do  not  know  that  any 
one  has  studied  the  possibility  of  changing  the  alkaloid's  spectrum 
by  the  Luther  Burkank  method  of  grafts.  If  animal  cell  "essences" 
like  the  alkaloids  have  constant  spectra,  breed  mixing  like  plant 
grafting  should  alter  them.  It  would  be  easy  to  compare  the 
spectra  of  the  tissue  and  germinal  cell  "essences,"  respectively, 
of  a  white  mother,  and  her  half-negro  child. 

Any  cell  sub-component  that  we  may  identify  and  influence  is 
21  step  toward  our  purpose. 


CR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    13 

If  the  comparatively  few  plants  whose  alkaloids 
are  known  are  thus  mathematically  fitted  to  sub- 
components in  the  spectrum,  there  must  surely  be 
other  biological  identities.  It  may  be  safely  as- 
serted that  there  is  a  syntonism  between  the  spec- 
trum lines  and  the  sub-components  of  each  cell  in 
organic  life.  The  spectrum  of  radium — "the 
strong  new  line  in  the  ultra-violet" — was  unknown 
until  the  discovery  of  radium.  So  there  is  a  math- 
ematical identity  for  the  normal  cell  sub-compo- 
nents, and  there  is  a  mathematical  identity  for  the 
sub-components  of  the  malignant  cell,  and  there  is  a 
difference  between  them  which  represents  either  a 
reinforcement  or  an  interference  with  one  or  more 
of  the  sub-components.  The  diagrams  (see  page 
53)  which  show  the  probable  action  upon  a  single 
rudimentary  chromosome,  in  the  fixing  of  sex,  will 
illustrate  the  concept  of  the  play  of  forces  upon 
a  single  element  in  a  cell — to  make  it  benign  or 
malignant.  This  is  precisely  what  radium  does, 
when  we  apply  it  at  haphazard  and  "it  cures  some 
cancers  and  causes  some  cancers."  And  whoever 
fits  these  cell  lines  to  the  lines  of  the  sub-components 
of  radium  will,  perhaps,  solve  malignancy. 

The  new  concept  of  the  atom,  and  the  new  know- 
ledge of  intra-atomic  activities,  make  the  sub-com- 
ponent all  important.    For  it  is  the  change  in  the 


14  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

sub-component  which  overturns  equilibrium  and 
transforms  the  element;  in  short,  which  gives  rise 
to  all  the  wonders  of  radio-activity. 

May  we  identify  the  sub-component?  May  we 
learn  what  determines  or  selects  the  special  a-par- 
ticle  from  the  revolving  electrons  to  escape  from 
the  radio-active  substance,  and  thus  transform  it? 
Soddy  says  this  is  dependent  upon  chance:  ''The 
chance  at  any  instant  whether  any  atom  disinte- 
grates or  not  in  any  particular  second  is  fixed.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  any  external  or  internal 
consideration  we  know  of  and  in  particular  it  is 
not  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  atom  has  already 
survived  any  period  of  past  time.  The  orientation 
assumed  by  the  atom  at  one  instant  has  no  deter- 
mining influence  upon  the  orientation  about  to  be 
assumed  at  the  next.  *  *  *  This  is  a  funda- 
mental step  gained,  although  it  leaves  the  ultimate 
problem  unsolved." 

Though  we  can  not  yet  tell  what  influence  plays 
upon  the  sub-component  whose  escape  causes  the 
transformation,  we  have  yet  advanced  far  enough 
to  count  the  atoms  escaping  from  radium.  We 
have  mastered  minute  entities  sufficiently  to  be  able 
to  diagram  the  length  of  the  gamma-ray,  as  com- 
pared with  the  X-ray,  as  compared  with  the  ordi- 
nary light  wave,  as  compared  with  the  curve  of  the 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     15 

red  blood  corpuscle.  We  may  yet  measure  the 
duration  of  the  important  sub-component,  and  dis- 
cover what  cause  selects  it  for  its  transforming 
mission,  in  its  escape. 

Through  what  channels  may  help  on  this  point 
come?  The  utmost  refinements  of  chemical  analy- 
sis will  probably  offer  little  aid. 

Color  analysis,  by  the  spectrum  and  fermentative 
tests,  is  yet  in  its  infancy,  though  we  have  already 
gotten  to  the  conception  that  color  is  the  mathe- 
matical sum  total  of  the  components  which  go  to 
make  it. 

Fermentative  tests — which  is  bacteriology  call- 
ing to  color  affinities — have  already  been  used  to 
differentiate  the  isomers  of  a  substance  and  show 
which  one  is  capable  of  digestion  and  which  one 
can  not  possibly  be  digested.     (See  page  76). 

Possibly  the  radio-active  sub-components  will  be 
nosed  out  by  similar  bacteriological  stainings. 

Until  these  identities  are  made,  however,  we  are 
not  entirely  in  the  dark.  From  400  million  million 
to  800  million  million  vibrations  per  second  in  the 
color  octave  of  the  spectrum  give  clue  to  400  mil- 
lion million  vibratory  differences  which  go  to  make 
up  the  gradations  and  shades.  The  velocity  show- 
ing as  red,  when  increased,  shows  as  orange,  and 
the  yellow,  and  so  on.     Therefore,  when  Sudbor- 


16  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

ough  made  yellow  phosphorus  change  into  red 
phosphorus  by  exposure  to  the  Becquerel  ray,  evi- 
dently the  radio-active  process  was  an  interference 
and  not  a  reinforcement,  and  velocity  was  di- 
minished and  not  increased.  An  expert  might  pick 
out  here  the  sub-component  which  met  interference, 
and  this  would  be  a  very  important  question  of 
dosage;  for  radio-activity  may  diminish  the  veloc- 
ity of  our  organic  phosphorus  and  denote  it  from 
yellow  to  red. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  Curies  made  ozone 
by  exposing  oxygen  to  the  radio-active  process, 
there  was  evidently  a  reinforcement  and  an  in- 
crease in  velocity.  Ozone,  though  a  colorless  gas, 
when  strongly  cooled  condenses  into  an  indigo  blue 
liquid  which  is  strongly  explosive.  It  bleaches  veg- 
etable colors,  acts  rapidly  on  metals,  instantly  de- 
stroys rubber  tubing  connections,  attacks  organic 
life,  and  liberates  iodine  from  the  glandular  tissue. 
We  find  it  liberated  in  forming  the  chlorophyllian 
green  of  the  plants — here  a  retarding  of  velocity 
from  the  blue,  of  greater  velocity.  May  We  not 
infer  a  reinforcement  by  radio-activity  at  one  color 
extremity,  and  an  interference  by  the  solar-chlor- 
ophyllian  process  at  the  other  extremity?  We  may 
work  from  extremities  where  it  is  not,  toward  the 
direction  where  it  is  known  to  be. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     17 

The  liberation  of  iodine  from  our  thyroids,  or 
the  change  of  our  phosphorus  from  higher  placed 
yellow  to  lower  placed  red,  is  a  proven  radio-active 
result. 

To  control  the  radio-active — or  the  solar-chlor- 
ophyllian — dosage,  and  thereby  increase  or  dimin- 
ish respectively  the  vibratory  coloring,  is  to  con- 
trol the  malignancy  of  Graves'  disease,  the  Leu- 
kemias,  as  well  as  the  "Cancer"  malignancy. 


Ill 


The  Processes  of  Life  Dependent  Upon  Def- 
inite Mathematics  Within  the  Cell. 
Biological  Sub-Components. 

What  do  we  know  of  these?  We  know  that 
there  are  syntonic  adjustments  in  living  beings 
which  select  forces  necessary  for  existence  and  ex- 
clude others  that  would  imperil  existence.  This 
has  been  fully  elaborated  in  the  "The  Philosophy 
of  Radio- Activity/'  Experiments  of  elementary 
physics  disclose  to  us  the  law  of  wave  length  rein- 
forcement and  interferences  by  which  these  selec- 
tions and  exclusions  are  made. 

Syntonic  relation  is  therefore  the  very  basis  of 
life,  for  it  is  thereby  that  we  are  protected  and 
nourished  by  the  identical  substances  which  kill 
other  life — as  the  oxygen  which  renews  our  blood, 
destroys  other  forms  of  life. 

We  have  only  a  few  syntonic  receivers.  (Please 
remember  that  reference  is  here  being  made  to  the 
likeness   to   the   receiver   of  wireless   telegraphy, 

18 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     19     > 

which  must  be  syntonic  with  the  sender. )  The  lim- 
itation is  with  us — not  in  the  infinity  of  changes 
about  us.  When  our  receivers,  our  syntonisms, 
are  over-sped  or  under-sped — and  they  are  pro- 
gressively under-sped  in  age — we  lose  reinforce- 
ments needed  for  our  existence,  or  run  into  self- 
wreck,  like  the  blindness  from  snow,  whose  high- 
sped  ultra-violet  rays  effect  our  vision.  The  rela- 
tion of  this  degradation  of  capacity  to  gland  im- 
pairment is  well  known. 

We  know,  too,  that  our  digestion  is  almost  en- 
tirely a  cytolysis  depending  upon  reinforcement  and 
interference.  Whether  the  contents  will  "digest" 
the  stomach  or  the  stomach  digest  the  contents, 
depends  upon  which  way  the  sub-component  is  set 
— as  disclosed  to  us  by  the  right  or  left  turn  of 
polarized  light.  A  fermentative,  or  bacterial,  test 
has  been  necessary  to  reveal  this  to  us.  (  See  page 
22. )  And  as  we  have  seen,  bacterial  tests — coloni- 
zations— are  made  known  to  us  simply  and  solely 
by  color  syntonisms.  And  color  and  crystal  turn- 
ings are  indexes  of  sub-components  whose  veloci- 
ties are  increased  or  decreased. 


We  know,  too,  that  evolution  upward  and  the 
retreat  backward  by  anaphylaxis,  are  but  expres- 


20  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

Sions     Of     SELECTIVE     CYTOLYSIS     AND     CONJOINED 

cytolysis — related  to  this  power  to  increase  or  de- 
crease velocities  in  the  color  octave  whereby  it  is 
ruled  which  one  of  two  antagonistic  organisms 
shall  disappear  by  becoming  food,  and  which  shall 
increase  upon  such  food. 

While  cancer  does  not  belong  to  bacteriology — 
the  Harvard  Commission  worked  this  subject  to  a 
finished  conclusion — yet  bacteriology  may  furnish 
the  cancer  clue  in  these  fermentative  tests,  which 
are  the  only  means  we  have  for  making  some  dif- 
ferentiations. 


Over-sped  and  under-sped  syntonisms — again 
we  are  referring  to  the  likeness  to  the  receiver  of 
wireless  telegraphy — have  been  traced  all  the  way 
up  the  line  of  evolution. 

We  have  seen  matter  made  from  ether,  and  life 
made  from  matter,  and  sex  differentiated  in  the 
cell,  and  the  animal  swerved  from  the  vegetable 
cell — and  the  motile  kingdom  revert  in  disease  to 
likeness  to  the  less  motile  (vegetable)  kingdom — 
all  by  processes  which  lift  or  lower  the  syntonisms. 

Therefore,  to  know  the  biological  sub-compo- 
nents we  must  consider  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  the  intermediaries  between  them,  the  in- 
fluence which  makes  sex — the  asexual  and  the  sex- 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    21 

ual  generations ;  what  adds  sex  and  what  subtracts 
sex — and  what  favors  passage  from  the  animal 
kingdom  back  to  the  vegetable,  and  thence  to  the 
mineral  and  inorganic. 


IV 


The  Intermediaries  Which  Protect  the  Cell 

from  Foreign  Albumins.     Missing  Inter- 

,  mediaries  in  Malignancy. 

In  1908  the  writer  published  the  following  on 
this  subject: 

"Please,  therefore,  let  us  revivify  in  our  consciousness  the 
absolute  necessity  of  the  ferments  in  making  food  really 
food  to  us — selecting  our  bread  from  stone  for  us  by  prac- 
tically the  same  process  that  Pasteur  used  in  his  laboratory 
years  ago. 

"With  sure  selective  instinct,  keener  than  the  scent  of  the 
bloodhound,  as  imperious  as  the  call  of  an  acid  for  its  base, 
these  our  agents  of  assimilation  and  protection  stand  at 
the  portal  of  our  being,  and  decide:  this  is  right  deflecting, 
this  is  left  deflecting:  this  is  bread,  this  is  stone — saying  to 
one,  'Go  ye  into  tissue';  and  to  the  other,  'Get  you  hence!' 

"Let  us  also  make  vivid  to  ourselves  this  conception  of 
the  protective  and  curative  powers  contained  in  these  newly- 
discovered  'ferments.'  All  this  is  in  vital  relation  with  the 
cancer  problem." 

In  the  same  paper  (see  page  76)  attention  was 
called  to  the  difficulty  in  telling  whether  bone-mar- 

22 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    23 

row  malignancy,  or  pernicious  anemia,  starts  the 
well  known  symptom  complex. 

The  trelation  of  the  bone  marrow  to  the  red 
blood  corpuscle,  to  pernicious  anemia,  and  to  ma- 
lignancy is  again  accented. 

The  red  blood  corpuscle  does  not  reproduce  it- 
self. It  has  a  short  life  and  is  a  terminal  cell. 
It  is  the  practical  basis  of  life;  iron,  the  most  mag- 
netic of  all  the  elements,  is  its  principal  compo- 
nent; and  it  is  one  of  the  few  points  at  which 
animal  life  may  touch  inorganic  life  without  other 
intermediary  than  that  furnished  by  the  "side 
chain"  of  its  own  molecular  construction.  Iron 
usually  comes  through  the  vegetable  kingdom  in- 
termediary; it  may  come  directly  from  the  inor- 
ganic. 

Why  this  important  cell  should  not  reproduce 
itself,  where  it  is  made,  and  the  final  disposition  of 
its  destroyed  elements,  are  important  biological 
sub-component  relations  with  malignancy. 

Then,  melanin  has  a  well  known  relation  with 
malignancy.  It  is  not  inconceivable  that  an  inhar- 
monious color  deposit  in  a  cell  may  start  a  ma- 
lignant process. 

We  have  elsewhere  (page  53)  shown  how  the 
reinforcement,  or  interference,  with  the  rudimen- 
tary chromosome  of  a  germinal  cell,  probably  de- 


24  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

termines  the  sex  of  the  offspring.  If  inharmonious 
color  deposits  start  malignancy,  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand how  these  come  to  pass. 

Thus,  the  red  blood  corpuscle  itself — though 
manufactured  and  dying  a  terminal  cell  without 
reproducing  itself — may  yet  carry  within  itself  a 
latent  reproductive  process.  An  adjusted  synto- 
nism — as  by  the  turn  of  a  crystal  from  rhomboid 
to  prism,  or  by  the  change  in  the  cell  focus — could 
readily  fan  this  into  activity.  The  process  is  ap- 
parent in  the  phenomenon  of  reproduction.  A  sim- 
ilar process  might  start  an  asexual  new-cell  repro- 
duction for  the  red  blood  corpuscle,  instead  of  the 
normal  death  as  a  terminal  cell.  This  would  be 
as  devitalizing  a  host  in  any  organism  as  is  ma- 
lignancy. 

If  the  X-ray  reinforces  a  process  into  malig- 
nancy, which  radium  promptly  cures  by  an  inter- 
ference, other  processes  could  readily  substitute  a 
scissiparity  (or  cell  division),  for  a  cell  death;  and 
the  red  blood  corpuscle,  when  so  treated,  would  be 
a  malignancy  when  sufficiently  multiplied. 

This  is  an  illustration,  not  a  theory.  Yet  it  is 
a  theory  that  from  the  reinforcement,  or  the  inter- 
ference, of  some  similar  sub-component  process, 
malignancy  proceeds  and  recedes.  A  tired  or  ex- 
hausted element  in  the  "side-chain,"  permitting  di- 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    25 

rect  access  from  the  exterior  to  the  nucleus,  would 
illustrate  a  similar  defective  biological  sub-compo- 
nent. The  cytolysis  which  selects  one  and  rejects 
the  other — cytolysis  conjoined  and  cytolysis  select- 
ive— is  well  understood  in  its  relation  to  evolution. 
Hemolysis  is  a  cytolysis  of  the  blood  cell.  Diges- 
tion is  a  cytolysis.  Whether  the  container  or  the 
contained  shall  melt — shall  be  digested — is  the 
problem  of  life:  and  this  is  dependent  upon  so 
slight  a  difference  of  constitution  that  the  spectrum 
and  a  fermentative  test  are  necessary  to  tell  apart 
two  substances  which  only  differ — as  isomers — in 
these  deeply  hidden  respects. 


The  hemolysis  in  the  blood  of  cancer  afflicted 
patients  has  been  written  upon  by  Crile.  Anaphy- 
laxis, or  backward  cytolysis  from  the  more  evolved 
to,  the  less  evolved  genera  and  species,  has  been 
elaborated  by  Richte,  who  received  the  Nobel  prize 
for  his  work.  The  almost  undiscoverable  differ- 
ence in  sub-components  which  sets  the  direction 
backwards  instead  of  forwards — see  "The  Phi- 
losophy of  Radio-Activity" — is  the  biological 
point  whereat  attention  must  be  focussed. 
The  Missing  Intermediaries: 

The  solar  ray  burns  the  grass  which  lacks  shade 
and  moisture.     Interpose  the  chlorophyll   at  the 


26  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

leaf's  green  edge,  and  the  distilling  process  which 
is  known  to  take  place  at  this  intermediary  be- 
tween the  solar  force  and  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
stores  what  is  otherwise  a  destruction,  and  makes 
of  it  force  and  life. 

In  the  same  way,  introduce  the  albumins  by 
hypodermatic  method  into  the  human  organism 
and  you  have  anaphylactic  destruction.  Send  the 
same  product  by  the  digestive  tract  via  the  inter- 
mediaries of  digestive  and  other  glands,  and  you 
have  again  force  and  life  from  what  otherwise 
would  be  destructive. 

The  intermediary  makes  the  difference  between 
going  forward  toward  force  and  life,  by  melting; 
or  backwards  towards  destruction,  by  causing  the 
containing  substance  to  melt — or  cytolyze,  or 
hemolyze. 

Therefore  the  intermediaries  are  all  important 
in  preserving  these  sub-components  in  the  precise 
relation  needed  for  the  melting  of  the  right  sub- 
stance into  the  right  substance. 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  elsewhere  treated 
at  length,  it  is  accented  that  the  time  of  gland  fail- 
ure is  the  advent  of  the  malignancies.  Also,  that 
the  glands  are  the  determiners  of  age,  sex,  mass 
and  form.  Harvey  Cushing  has  done  monumental 
work  on  this  subject.    That  the  glands  transfer  sex 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     27 

and  discount,  or  advance  age,  is  apparent  from 
those  well-known  cases  of  "adrenal  virilism":  that 
is  to  say,  organic  disturbances  of  development, 
showing  either  precocious  development  of  the  in- 
fant, or  the  masculine  aspect  a  woman  may  acquire, 
even  after  the  menopause,  under  the  influence  of 
tumor  of  the  supra-renal  gland.  (See  Journ.  A. 
M.  A.  June  20,  1914,  page  1978.) 


V 


The  Relation  Between  the  Glands  and  the 
Sex;  the  Feminization  of  the  Male  by 
Obesity;  the  Belated  Secretions;  the  Rela- 
tions Between  Secretions,  Obesity,  Malig- 
nancy and  Appetite.  A  Diet  for  Cancer 
Patients. 

Besides  being  probably  intermediaries  between 
the  animal  and  the  vegetable  kingdoms,  the  glands 
are  also  directed  toward  modifying  what  is  in- 
gested, and  preparing  it  that  it  may  "melt"  into 
the  body  which  contains  it,  instead  of  destroying 
the  container.  The  difference  is  as  slight — or  as 
great — as  the  difference  between  one  isomer  of  the 
same  thing,  and  the  opposite  isomer.  But  this  dif- 
ference is  greater  than  that  between  bread  and 
stone:  for  the  isomer  which  is  digestively  unas- 
sailable may  itself  actively  "digest"  cells  of  the 
organism  in  which  it  is  placed,  and  thus  take  on 
a  growth  therein. 

28 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     29 

The  glands  also  preside  over  the  sex  cycle,  and 
because  so  doing  necessarily  relate  the  sex  cycle 
to  the  question  of  malignancy.  The  glands  may  be 
termed  not  only  the  sex,  but  also  the  age. 

When  the  thymus  is  absorbed  at  puberty  the 
secondary  sex  characteristics  are  unlocked*.  The 
line  swerves,  function  diverges,  vibratory  changes 
appear;  the  soprano  of  the  male  becomes  bass,  only 
to  revert  at  the  end  of  the  sex  digression  to  the 
senile  shrillness.  So  the  temporarily  high  vibra- 
tory quality  of  the  female  thickens  and  descends 
as  her  digressive  line,  too,  approaches  the  com- 
mon mean,  where  age  conquers  sex.  The  vibra- 
tory-conferring powers  of  the  ductless  glands  are 
proven  in  castration  and  ovariotomy  sequelae;  in 
the  female  descent  from  high  note,  the  male  ascent 
from  low  note,  the  facial  hirsutis  of  the  female,  the 
hairlessness  of  the  male.  Each  malef  carries  a 
useless  female  rudiment,  and  each  female  carries 


*Steinlich  (quoted  by  Cushing.  PB.,  Page  276)  showed  the 
VIII  International  Congress  of  Physiologists  (1911)  examples  of 
artificially  produced  male  rats.  "He  had  removed  the  ovaries 
from  young  females  and  implanted  testes  from  young  males  into 
their  anterior  abdominal  walls,  with  permanent  change  of  sex 
characteristics,  the  subjects  growing  into  normal  masculine  in- 
dividuals." 

As  R.  T.  Morris  (Adami,  page  581)  sewed  another  woman's 
ovary  into  a  woman  from  whom  both  ovaries  had  been  removed 
and  pregnancy  resulted  later;  and  as  Carrel  has  shown  the  via- 
bilty  of  detached  parts  of  the  organism,  surgical  re-arrangement 
of  sex  is  by  no  mean^  a  fantastic  dream, 
f  Adami,  Prin.  of  Pathol.    258. 


30  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

a  useless  male  rudiment,  in  the  precise  manner 
that  traces  of  their  common  origin  are  seen  in  both 
the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms. 

If  the  highest  forms  show  the  digression,  it  must 
be  similarly  hidden  in  the  lowest.  For  the  detritus 
of  one  kingdom  is  the  nourishment  of  the  other — 
the  daily  oxygen  and  carbon  output  of  the  vegetable 
chlorophyll,  as  well  as  the  stored  nitrogen,  is  ex- 
changed with  the  animal  for  the  agriculturally  en- 
riching product  of  animal  decay.  One  kingdom 
depends  upon  the  other:  "without  fauna,  no  flora; 
without  flora,  no  fauna;  without  the  solar  ray, 
neither  fauna  nor  flora,"  is  the  ancient  dictum  here 
strongly  reaffirmed.  We  may  even  paraphrase  it, 
and  say  "without  female,  no  male" — and  by  the 
very  inadequacy  of  the  paraphrase  find  ourselves 
facing  a  subtle,  yet  important  point: 

The  Determination  of  Sex,  and  the  Set- 
ting of  Hereditary  Type,  Probably  Both  Lie 
in  the  Glandular  Cycle. 

We  have  elsewhere  described  the  "Contradanse" 
of  the  Chromosomes,  wherein  eight  male  chromo- 
somes face  eight  female  chromosomes  for  a  definite 
"rest"  before  fusion. 

What  is  taking  place  during  that  "rest"  is  the 
nourishment  of  the  hungry  male  element.  Hartog 
says :  "It  can  not  fuse  with  the  female  nucleus  until 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     31 

it  has  attained  a  normal  condition;  and  for  this 
purpose  it  must  be  nourished." 

The  sperm  is  taking  something  from  the  female 
element.  The  hungrier  it  is,  the  more  avidity  and 
quantity  are  involved.  The  female  is  adding  some- 
thing to  the  male  element.  There  is  reinforcement 
and  interference  with  differing  result  as  to  sex  as 
an  outcome.  We  see  the  relation  is  a  color  rela- 
tion. Unquestionably,  sex  depends  upon  the  rein- 
forcement of  one  of  the  color  bodies,  or  the  inter- 
ference with  another. 

Now  the  setting  of  hereditary  type  and  the  de- 
termination of  sex,  may  have  no  closer  relation 
with  malignancy  than  to  hint  to  us  of  a  process 
of  reinforcement  or  interference  within  the  cell 
during  the  "rest"  period  of  the  "contra-danse"  of 
the  chromosomes.  But  this  hint  is  very  impor- 
tant. 

The  Belated  Secretion,  Outlasting  its 
Normal  Inhibiting  Antagonists:  (See  page 
103.) 

"Those  in  whom  a  ferment  (or  glandular  secretion)  fails 
too  soon,  or  lasts  too  long,  have  therein  the  basis  of  the 
pre-cancer  stage.  There  may  be  special  danger  in  the  be- 
lated secretion,  outlasting  its  normal  inhibiting  antagonists. 
These  become  the  non-immune  to  cancer,  and  may  grow 
in  it  the  presence  of  a  contributing  cause." 

The  author  published  this  hint  in   1910. 


32  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

May  21,  1914,  at  the  New  York  Academy  of 
Medicine,  Studies  in  Cancer  from  the  General  Me- 
morial Hospital  (principally  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Cornell  laboratories),  were  reported.  Dr. 
Beebe  referred  to  the  experiments  made  in  the 
Cornell  laboratories,  wherein  tadpoles  fed  on  thy- 
mus protein  grew  very  large  without  differentiating 
as  frogs;  but,  if  thyroid  was  then  added,  they  be- 
came frogs.  This  seems  to  bear  out  the  theory  ad- 
vanced by  the  author,  four  years  before. 

The  Relation  Between  Obesity  and  Malig- 
nancy; 

The  Relation  Between  Obesity  and  Gland- 
ular Secretions; 

The  Relation  Between  Glandular  Secre- 
tion and  Appetite; 

That  obesity  is  in  dim  relationship  with  malig- 
nancy, has  elsewhere  been  cited  by  the  author. 
Again  reference  is  made  to  the  genital  hypoplasia 
seen  in  the  typus  femininus  in  males  with  pituitary 
disorder.  The  tenor  voice  of  the  hairless  obese 
man  is  as  closely  associated  with  genital  hypop- 
lasia, as  is  the  exactly  reverse  condition  in  the  fe- 
male, described  by  the  present  writer  in  1904  as 
follows : 

"Even  in  these  stolid  ones  of  the  community,  however, 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    33 

may  be  noticed  the  following  differences  after  a  hysterec- 
tomy: a  comparatively  lusterless  eye,  a  roughened  voice 
and  an  increased  hair  growth;  a  flattening,  or  a  fattening 
of  the  breast  at  glandular  expense;  an  increase  of  fat,  a 
devitilization,  or  a  defeminization,  or  a  hebetudinization, 
so  to  speak;  a  changing,  as  from  the  high-stepper  to  the 
cart-horse ;  from  the  alertness  of  the  city-bred  to  the  hebe- 
tude of  province,  where  nerve  stimuli  are  few  and  slow  and 
response  thereto  similar.  It  is  a  wiping  out  of  zest,  spirit, 
and  pride  of  port. 

"These  objective  results  are  patent  to  the  superficial  ob- 
server. Their  significance,  however,  is  more  difficult  read- 
ing. We  are  helped  in  this  reading  by  the  almost  spectac- 
ular restorations  possible  in  those  cases  that  I  have  called 
'the  self-obliterated  feminine  element'  These  cases,  as 
elsewhere  elaborated,  represent  the  gradual  stamping  out 
in  function  of  the  selective  cells  of  sex  in  women  from 
twenty-five  to  forty  years,  who  show  diminished  menstru- 
ation, loss  of  sensual  sense  and  power  of  orgasm,  with  an 
increase  of  weight,  roughening  of  skin  and  voice,  and  a 
growing  lithemia  and  hebetude.  As  a  cause,  or  a  result,  the 
obliteration  of  the  feminine  element  in  the  individual  al- 
most rivals  the  work  of  the  knife  in  its  completeness.  Note 
that  in  these  cases  the  naval  orange,  draught  horse,  lard- 
producing  analogy  and  capacity  are  not  lost.  But  what 
goes  is,  reproductive  capacity,  spirit,  initiative,  outlook — 
in  other  words,  the  'house  of  the  mind/  without  which 
there  can  be  no  effective  longevity. 

"It  is  only  to  those  color-blind  to  the  possibilities  of 
female  life,  aside  from  reproduction,  that  these  matters  will 
seem   unimportant.      For   efficient   longevity   is   entirely   a 


34  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

class  matter.  There  can  be  none  of  it  after  the  time  of 
muscular  activity  with  those  falling  in  my  biological  classi- 
fication." 

In  other  words,  the  abolition  of  sex  throws  the 
male  over  the  line  into  the  feminine  type — with 
tenor  voice,  hairlessness,  and  genital  hypoplasia; 
whereas,  in  the  female,  it  coarsens  the  voice,  thick- 
ens the  skin,  increases  the  growth  of  hair,  but  still 
augments  the  obesity  as  in  the  opposite  sex. 

As  obesity  brings  the  typus  femininus  to  the  male 
we  may  consider  the  obese  part  of  him  along  with 
the  same  condition  in  the  female.  We  may  con- 
sider the  storage  of  fat,  therefore,  as  a  feminine 
process:  as  the  ovum  is  fat  filled,  and  when  com- 
pared with  the  lean  and  hungry  male  sperm,  is  as 
"St.  Peter's  dome  to  a  pin  head"  in  size  relation. 
The  storage  of  fat  in  the  female  is  to  nourish,  first 
the  male  sperm,  and  next  the  new  life  growing. 
This  over-burden  of  nutritive  femininity  for  nour- 
ishment of  new  life,  is  a  dangerous  magazine  of 
stored  force  in  the  organism. 

If  the  relation  of  obesity  to  malignancy  is  no 
closer  than  that  of  being  the  cause  of  the  genital 
hypoplasia — with  its  extinguishing  influence  on  the 
other  glands  of  the  other  cycle  (the  pituitary,  thy- 
roid, mammary,  adrenals,  etc.) — such  relation  is 
still  close  enough  to  merit  study. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    35 

It  needs  no  argument,  in  these  days,  to  relate 
obesity  to  the  glandular  secretion,  or  to  relate  one 
glandular  secretion  to  the  entire  glandular  cycle. 
The  reduction  of  obesity  is  now  one  of  the  easiest 
processes  in  medicine,  and  the  writer  has  done  this 
as  routine  for  nearly  two  decades. 

It  may  need  the  suggestion  that  the  appetite's 
quality  direction  depends  upon  the  glandular  se- 
cretions. The  "longings"  of  pregnancy  are  in  evi- 
dence when  the  glands  are  engaged  in  the  extra 
work  of  nourishing  the  additional  life. 

Others  may  have  remarked,  with  the  author,  the 
great  change  in  the  direction  of  the  appetites  of 
patients  cured  of  obesity.  Aside  from  the  fact  that 
the  fats  cells  which  no  longer  exist,  no  longer  clamor 
for  food,  the  rest  of  the  organism  seems  to  have 
acquired  entirely  new  food  instincts.  I  have  fre- 
quently taken  down  weight  by  increasing  the  nutri- 
tion; the  appetite  is  always  re-directed. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  reawakening  of  sex  libido 
in  these  cases  also  comes  from  restored  glandular 
integrity.* 


*Vide  Cushing's  case  shown  in  photograph  to  1913  London 
Congress,  of  a  girl  of  six  who  looked  sixteen  and  had  puberty  at 
two.  (The  photographs  shown  by  Cushing  in  "The  Pituitary  Body" 
disclose  the  typus  femininus,  and  the  accompanying  genital  hypo- 
plasia.) 

Napoleon,  whose  later  tendency  to  globularity  and  resemblance 
to  a  woman,  showed  glandular  disorder,  is  now  considered  as 
having  had  a  bruised  stalk  of  the  pituitary  body.  (Vide  discus- 
sion 1913  London  Congress.) 


36  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

The  Carbohydrate  Tolerance; 

The  Carbohydrates  and  Malignancy; 

The  Sugar  Content  of  the  Blood  in  Ma- 
lignancy; 

The  relation  of  the  carbohydrates  to  obesity  is 
well  known.  The  increased  assimilative  limit  for 
carbohydrates  is  so  well  known  an  accompaniment 
of  glandular  disorder  and  obesity,  that  definite 
routine  has  been  established  for  its  determination. 
What  are  the  other  symptoms  of  under-glandular 
tone?    Cushing  says: 


Hypo-adrenalism  gives : 


Hypopituitarism  gives : 


asthenia, 

pigmentation, 

low  blood  pressure. 

sub-normal  temperature, 
dry  skin, 
loss  of  hair, 
slowed  pulse, 
lowered  blood  pressure, 
asthenia, 

increased  assimilative  limit  for 
carbohydrates. 


Cushing's  rule  to  determine  the  carbohydrate  tol- 
erance is:  "In  the  lack  of  a  definite  symptomatic 
tell-tale  of  the  degree  of  hypophyseal  insufficiency, 
we  have  had  recourse  to  the  carbohydrate  toler- 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    37 

ance  as  a  measure  of  the  deficit,  and  so  far  as  our 
experience  has  gone  this  furnishes  us  with  the  only 
rational  estimate  of  the  requisite  dosage  of  a  given 
preparation." 

That  there  should  be  a  mathematical  point  at 
which  there  is  a  "'turn-over"  of  sugar  taken  by 
mouth  into  the  urine,  which  mathematical  point 
may  be  varied  by  gland  feeding — very  conclusively 
ties  the  glands  up  to  a  control  over  what  may  enter 
the  body,  and  what  must  be  rejected. 

Glandular  inactivity  means  that  this  turn-over 
point  is  set  high;  glandular  feeding  and  freshen- 
ing, mean  that  this  turn-over  point  is  set  lower, 
and  the  dangerous  matter  is  turned  into  the  sewer 
and  not  stored  in  the  tissues.  See  page  22  pub- 
lished by  the  author  in  1908  on  this  subject. 

The  Cornell  report  of  May  21,  1914  (Doctors 
S.  R.  Benedict  and  R.  C.  Lewis),  established  the 
fact  of  the  sugar  content  of  the  blood  in  malignancy, 
and  the  fact  that  it  increases  up  until  death. 

Obesity  is  in  dim  relationship  with  ma- 
lignancy. The  sugar  content  of  the  blood  in  obes- 
ity, which  has  now  a  routine  method  for  its  de- 
termination; and  THE  TURN-OVER  POINT  OF  TOLER- 
ANCE, which  is  also  a  mathematical  point  (variable 
at  our  will),  are  now  able  to  throw  a  distinct  ray 
of  lisrht  into  this  dimness. 


38  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

Latent  diabetes  is  now  a  discoverable,  removable 
antecedent  to  the  following  "malignancies" :  arterio- 
sclerosis, contracted  kidney,  cerebral  hemorrhage, 
cataract,  eczema,  ferunculosis,  and  gangrene.  (We 
are  conscious  of  naming  the  symptoms  of  the  un- 
derlying "malignancies,"  as  the  best  means  of  point- 
ing to  the  malignancies  themselves.  See  "Unclas- 
sified Diseases,"  by  the  author.) 

A  color  response — the  Fehling  reaction — is  what 
the  suboxids  give  to  the  right  call,  and  we  are  able 
to  follow  with  our  mathematics  at  this  point  the 
result  of  diet  upon  the  sub-components  within  the 

cell! 

"Bang's  method  for  determining  abnormal  proportions 
of  sugar  in  the  blood  has  proved  simple  and  reliable,  and 
Bornstein  commends  it  highly.  Three  drops  of  blood  are 
soaked  up  into  a  piece  of  blotting  paper,  16  by  28  mm. 
When  dry,  5  c.c.  of  a  boiling  solution  of  potassium  chlorid 
is  poured  over  it.  (136  c.c.  of  a  concentrated  solution  of 
potassium  chlorid;  64  c.c.  distilled  water,  and  0.15  c.c.  of 
25  per  cent,  hydrochloric  acid.)  This  coagulates  the  albu- 
min in  the  blood,  while  the  sugar  diffuses  in  the  fluid  and  the 
Fehling  reaction  is  applied  after  half  an  hour.  If  this  does 
not  precipitate  any  suboxids,  then  the  sugar  content  of 
the  blood  is  normal  (below  0.15  per  cent.).  A  precipitate 
means  hyperglycemia.  With  four  drops  of  blood  a  reac- 
tion is  obtained  with  a  sugar  content  of  only  0.12  per  cent., 
which  is  the  lowest  limit  of  normal  range."  (Berliner  Klin- 
ische  Wochenschrift,  May  18,  1914:    N.  Roth.) 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    39 

But  equally  as  significant  is  the  communication 
of  Dr.  S.  P.  Beebe  at  the  same  meeting.  By  with- 
holding carbohydrates  from  26  planted*  rats  and 
feeding  normal  diet  to  26  other  similarly  planted 
rats,  the  results  were  as  given  in  the  following 

table : 

Special  Diet  Control 

26      rats  planted;  26      rats  planted; 

100%  takes;  100%  takes 

2      died;  24      died; 

4      accidents,    cause    un-       2      regressed, 
known ; 
20      regressed. 

The  superficial  cancer  cures  reported  at  the  same 
meeting  by  Dr.  A.  F.  Holding,  who  projected  photo- 
graphs on  the  screen,  were  principally  in  obese 
patients,  whose  physiognomies,  after  cure,  re- 
minded the  present  writer  of  the  awakened  apa- 
thies frequently  seen  in  his  cured  obesity  cases. 
There  are  cancers  in  the  thin,  of  course.  And  loss 
of  weight  is  an  early  symptom  of  malignancy.    But 


*The  planting  was  done  with  the  Buffalo  sarcoma.  Dr.  Beebe 
quoted  Mendell's  experiments,  on  the  use  of  lard  and  butter  as 
fats.  Incomplete  proteid  diet  will  stunt  animals ;  they  live  but  do 
not  grow.  Add  complete  proteins,  and  they  resume  growth.  It  is 
similar  with  the  cancer  cell.  Butter,  for  example,  will  "recover" 
a  receding  cancer  which  was  losing  its  virulence  under  the  lard 
diet. 


40  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

many  malignancies  have  been  overweight  at  the 
start.* 

The  butter-lard  protein  tests,  if  not  simply- 
remarkable  coincidences,  give  us  a  formula  to  ex- 
press the  application  of  a  dietary  sub-component 
to  a  biological  sub-component,  with  a  resulting  ma- 
lignancy. 

Butter-proteins  minus  lard-proteins  leave  a  pro- 
tein group  which  recovers  receding  malignancy; 
which  is  needed  to  keep  malignancy  from  receding. 

In  "Arteriosclerosis,"  Dr.  Louis  Faugeres  Bishop 
speaks  of  the  advantages  of  the  few  protein  diet, 
instead  of  a  restricted  diet  of  many  proteins.  In 
other  words,  he  holds  that  allowing  sufficient  quan- 
tity of  a  small  group  is  better  than  allowing  a  re- 
stricted quantity  of  a  mixed  group. 

Robin  and  Gautier  (Robin,  Tuberculosis,  136) 
point  out  an  interesting  relation  between  the  sub- 
component of  diet  and  the  sub-component  of  cell 
life: 

"The  ashes  of  bread  are  acid.  To  saturate  the  bases  con- 
tained in  100  grms.  of  bread,  0/232  grm.  of  phosphoric  acid 


♦"There  is  no  heredity  in  cancer,  but  there  has  been  a  tendency 
to  over-weight  in  insured  who  have  died  of  cancer — though  thin 
men  also  suffer." — Mr.  Frederick  C.  Hoffman,  Chairman  Board 
of  Statistics  Prudential  Life  Insurance  Co. 

Obviously  an  active  thyroid  means  no  over-weight,  hence  good 
guardianship  against  malignancy.  An  abnormally  active  thyroid, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  no  longer  a  good  guardian ;  it  is  itself  malig- 
mancy  of  another  sort, —  (i.  e.,  Graves'  Disease,  Leukemia,  etc.) 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     41 

would  be  sufficient.  Well,  these  ashes  themselves  contain 
0.470  grm.  The  difference  (0.238  grm.)  has  therefore  tc 
be  borrowed  from  the  organism  for  saturation  and  elimina- 
tion. Hence  the  importance  of  not  giving  too  large  a  quan- 
tity of  bread.  .  .  .  and  of  ordering  in  its  stead  po- 
tatoes, the  ashes  of  which  are  alkaline  and  rich  in  mag- 
nesia." 

The  obese  are  notoriously  great  bread  eaters,  and 
are  thereby  demineralizing  their  blood,  which  is 
already  both  relatively  and  actually  less  in  quan- 
tity than  that  of  persons  of  normal  weight. 

When  we  recall  that  iron,  the  most  magnetic  of 
the  elements,  is  the  chief  color  bearer  of  the  blood, 
and  that  the  malignant  cell — as  we  shall  see  later — 
is  a  decolorized  cell,  to  a  certain  definite  extent, 
we  again  obtain  view  of  the  dim  relationship  be- 
tween obesity  and  malignancy. 

There  may  be  assumed,  therefore,  proven  rela- 
tion between 

sex, 

gland, 

obesity, 

carbohydrates. 

There  is  also  a  proven  mathematical  point  where- 
at cell  acceptance  becomes  cell  rejection,  and  we  may 
change  this  rejection  point  at  will  by  measuring 
the  amount  of  glucose  or  levulose  taken  in,  and 
adding  proper  dosage  of  glandular  substance. 


42  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

It  is  very  important  to  discover  if  this  is  by  crys- 
tal turn,  or  simply  by  an  elective  sensitivity  of  cer- 
tain cells  to  dextro  or  sinistro  rotary  light.  (See 
page  76).  It  seems  the  guard  point  at  the  thresh- 
old of  malignancy.  Both  complete  protein  feeding, 
and  the  presence  of  carbohydrates  in  the  diet — 
that  is,  normal  diet — allow  the  growth  of  the  can- 
cer cell.  Restricting  the  carbohydrates  causes 
planted  tumors  tc  regress.  Restricting  the  pro- 
teins— giving  the  incomplete  protein — seems  also 
to  bring  about  a  retarding  of  the  cancer  cell  growth. 

But  complete  starvation,  as  occurs  in  some  py- 
loric conditions,  does  not  cure  the  patients. 

Logic  would  point  to  an  incomplete  protein,  with 
restricted  carbohydrates,  as  the  diet  for  malig- 
nancy. This  may  be  a  lead  in  a  direction  promising 
hope.  Hens  will  not  lay  without  proteins.  The 
relation  of  protein  to  the  reproductive  glands  is  as 
close  as  the  relation  of  the  reproductive  glands  to 
malignancy. 

The  nitrogen  turn-over  point  as  surely  ex- 
ists, and  is  probably  as  surely  controllable  as  is  the 
carbohydrate  turn-over  point;  only  we  have  not 
found  it  yet.  There  are  some  recent  suggestions 
relating1  to  it.  Schamberg  (quoted  by  Bulkley, 
Med.  Record,  Oct.  24,  1914),  has  studied  the  strong 
tendencies  of  psoriasic  patients  to  store  nitrogen. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     43 

If  obesity  be  a  disease  characterized  by  a  high  car- 
bohydrate turn-over  point,  psoriasis  may  be  said  to 
be  a  disease  characterized  by  a  high  nitrogen  turn- 
over point.  The  present  writer,  following  Bulkley, 
has  frequently  controlled  the  perverted  and  active 
proliferation  of  epithelial  cells  by  restricting  pro- 
teins and  enforcing  Bulkley's  rice-butter  diet. 
Here  is  again  a  direct  dietary  control  of  a  cellular 
subcomponent.  We  get  sure  clinical  answer,  but 
have  as  yet  no  laboratory  mathematics — as  we  have 
with  carbohydrates.  (See  J.  Walter  Vaughan, 
"Protein  Split  Products,"  Journ.  A.  M.  A.,  Oct.  10, 
1914,  page  1258.) 

The  supply  of  potash  for  fertilizers  being  de- 
rived almost  exclusive  from  Germany,  the  pres- 
ent war  has  accented  to  the  whole  public  how  a 
lacking  element  of  soil  diet  alters  a  subcomponent 
in  a  vegetable  cell.  Bulkley  quotes  Ross  with  ap- 
proval, that  there  is  a  similar  failure  in  the  pot- 
ash elements  in  patients  who  are  subject  to  cancer. 
No  one  would  yet  be  justified  in  postponing  sur- 
gery for  dietary  delay.  But  after  surgery,  recur- 
rences may  be  avoided  by  careful  study  of  these  two 
turn-over  points.  Post-surgical  cancer  cases,  there- 
fore, strongly  need  medical  supervision. 

As  the  diabetic  craves  sweets,  as  the  lithemic 
craves  meat,  we  may  follow  the  craving  as  a  symp- 


44  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

torn  of  a  hidden  high  turn-over  point,  and  find  an 
element  which  has  sure  relation  with  cell  subcom- 
ponents. 

There  is  a  new  lead  on  this  subject.  The  secret 
power  in  the  pituitary  body  to  cause  extrusion  of 
the  contents  of  the  womb  is  now  established.  Tak- 
ing the  extrusive  power  of  the  pituitary  as  the 
standard,  oxy toxic  powers  of  other  tissues  have 
been  studied,  and  even  the  cells  of  the  lining  of  the 
intestines  are  seen  to  contain  an  extrusive  secretion, 
with  mathematical  relation  to  the  power  of  the 
standard  of  extrusion. 

Now,  if  the  proteins  affect  this  extrusive  power 
— and  this  is  a  subject  suggested  to  the  experts — 
we  have  another  relation,  mathematically  fixed,  be- 
tween diet  and  sub-components  within  the  cell. 

We  already  know  how  to  alter  the  rejection 
point  for  carbohydrates  ;  and  there  will  probably 
be  discovered  the  mathematics  of  extrusive  power 
in  the  cells  of  each  tissue. 

Perhaps  this  will  be  found  in  definite  relation 
with  the  incontinent  nucleus  of  the  malignant 
cell,  referred  to  in  the  next  section. 


VI 

The  Incontinent  Nucleus;  the  Loss  of  Nu- 
clear Color  in  Sex  Decline  and  in 
Fatigue;  the  Control  of 
Overgrowths. 

The  new  hair  growths  of  the  climacteric — the 
dechromatized  hairs — grow  twice  as  rapidly  as  the 
remaining  fully  colored  hairs.  This  would  imply 
that  there  is  something  in  the  coloring  matter,  which 
retards  some  growth. 

Fatigue  takes  color  from  the  nucleus  of  each 
brain,  liver,  adrenal  and  thyroid  cell — as  shown  by 
the  photographs  taken  by  Crile  in  his  experiments 
on  this  subject.  Reversion  to  asexual  generation, 
as  in  the  algues,  reduces  the  color  in  the  nuclei 
to  exactly  one-half.  Sexual  generation,  at  each 
alternate  generation  in  those  genera  and  species 
which  still  preserve  both  methods,  doubles  the  color 
at  the  nuclear  center.  We  may  count  the  chromo- 
somes. 


45 


46  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

From  this  it  would  seem  that  fatigue,  and  the  loss 
of  sex  quality,  both  divide  the  central  nuclear  color. 
From  which,  logic  may  advance  a  further  step  and 
say  that  fatigue  and  loss  of  sex  quality  remove  a 
control  process  governing  the  growth  of  certain 
cells — notably  the  decolorized  hairs,  and  possibly 
the  malignant  cell,  which  is  also  a  cell  minus  part 
of  its  central  nuclear  color. 

Color  loss  implies  fatigue  and  loss  of  sex  quality 
— and  also  a  loss  of  a  quality  which  holds  in  check 
"weed  cell"  growth.  This  may  be  illustrated  from 
another  angle.  Large  persons,  the  "pituitary  tall," 
are  notoriously  undervitalized  and  deficient  in  sex 
powers.  The  diminutives — the  "thyroid  small" — 
are  as  notoriously  virile  and  active  sexually.  There- 
fore, either  the  capacity,  or  the  employment  of  the 
capacity,  checks  a  cell  growth  which  unchecked 
would  yield  the  giant.  There  is,  therefore,  presump- 
tively a  check  in  the  glands  of  the  sexual  cycle  as 
potent  as  that  in  the  thymus  gland — which  latter 
prevents  the  development  of  all  secondary  sexual 
characteristics  until  its  absorption.  (  See  page  32. ) 
Why  are  the  breasts  which  are  unable  to  suckle 
child  more  prone  to  cancer?     (Bainbridge,  104.) 

The  glandular  cycle  is  a  co-related  system,  each 
part  being  as  related  to  the  secondary  sexual  char- 
acteristics as  to  each  other  part. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     47 

Therefore  there  is  glandular  control  of  mass  and 
form,  and  growth  and  overgrowth,  and  the  frontier 
integrity  of  the  differentiated  tissues. 

The  incontinent  nucleus,  whose  chromatin  escapes 
into  the  cytoplasm,  is  characteristic  of  the  malignant 
cell.  This  is  analogous  with  the  involuntary  pas- 
sage of  urine  and  feces;  or  dilated  pupils,  or  invol- 
untary sex  dreams,  in  the  individual.  It  is  a  true 
incontinence  due  to  the  removal  of  some  central 
control. 

The  sub-component  defect  of  control  which  al- 
lows this  nuclear  incontinence  is  very  important; 
it  should  be  found. 

Perhaps  the  remarkable  bodies  observable  in  the 
cancer  cells  are  what  result  from  the  efforts  of  na- 
ture to  repair  the  color  losses  entailed  by  the  incon- 
tinent nucleus.  Many  observers  hold  that  these 
bodies,  seen  with  fair  frequency — sometimes  in 
great  abundance — are  sporozoa.  Gaylord  thinks 
these  bodies  present  both  animal  and  vegetable  char- 
acteristics. The  general  opinion  now  is  that  they 
are  modified  cell  and  nuclear  products.  But  the 
processes  of  life  elsewhere  would  be  reversed  in  the 
cell  if  nature  made  no  effort  to  repair  the  leakage 
of  the  chromatin  in  malignancy.  The  present  writer 
refers  to  a  possibility  presented  on  page  49. 

Perhaps  the  X-ray  and  the  y-ray  may  only  stim- 


48  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

ulate  the  control  of  this  leakage  of  chromatin  from 
the  nucleus.  Or  a  direct  stimulation  to  color  pro- 
duction may  ensue.  For  Meirowsky  has  seen  pig- 
ment in  cells,  after  subjecting  the  skin  to  Finsen 
light,  collecting  more  abundantly  on  the  side  near 
the  source  of  light.  This  pigment  in  cells  sends 
out  processes  which  assume  the  characteristic 
chromatophose  type. 

The  solar  ray  draws  out  pigment  in  great  abund- 
ance. In  blood  demineralized — and  we  have  seen 
how  easily  this  may  be  done — there  is  a  loss  of  color. 
And  the  loss  of  color  implies  not  only  a  loss  of 
inhibition  of  weed  cell  growth,  but  exposure  of  a 
partially  uncurtained  normal  cell  to  the  solar  ray, 
whose  draft  of  pigment  toward  itself  is  doubt- 
less similar  to  that  proven  in  response  to  the  Finsen 
ray. 

How  readily  could  this  arrangement  of  pigment 
in  cells  stir  to  activity  the  latent  third  type  of 
asexual  reproduction — in  a  terminal  cell  like  the  red 
blood  corpuscle,  for  example — and  give  us  the  whole 
phenomenon  of  malignancy !  To  uncurtain  a  blood 
cell  and  expose  it  to  unwonted  light,  needs  only  a 
crystal  turn,  or  a  change  in  the  cell  focus.  Arnold 
Knapp  says  that  age  may  be  told  with  almost  math- 
ematical precision  from  the  change  in  the  eye  focus. 
The  present  writer  believes  that  each  cell  has  a  cor- 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     49 

responding  change  of  focus  advancing  with  age; 
and  that  age  is  a  relative  matter  depending  upon 
glandular  integrity.* 


*Gowers  believes  that  the  whitening  of  the  hair  is  due  to 
nerve  center  traumatism,  and  that  there  is  a  compensating  effort 
made  to  increase  pigmentation  in  the  vicinity  of  its  loss ;  that  there 
is  a  close  relation  between  the  plus  and  minus  in  the  pigmentary 
process.  "A  remarkable  illustration :  one  of  my  cases  a  man  with 
traumatic  miningeal  hemorrhage  over  the  left  hemisphere.  As  a 
result  of  this,  during  the  three  days  he  lived  after  the  injury, 
the  right  opposite  half  of  the  hair  of  his  head  and  of  his  brown 
moustache  and  beard  became  white.  The  change  was  watched 
during   life   and   carefully   noted   after   death.  .     .     Disordered 

innervation  changed  the  secretion  at  the  roots  of  the  hairs.  .  .  . 
We  noticed  another  thing  after  death :  The  very  gray,  almost 
white,  right  half  of  the  beard  was  separated  from  the  brown  left 
half  by  a  narrow  verticle  line,  or  narrow  zone,  in  the  middle  line, 
IN  WHICH  THE  HAIR  HAD  BECOME  ALMOST  BLACK. 
Apparently,  where  the  disordered  influence  ceased  ...  a  change 
in  the  pigmentary  processes  occurred  of  an  opposite  character." 

(Clinical  Lectures  by  Sir  William  Gowers,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  1914, 
P.  153.) 


VII 


The  Glands  and  Pigmentation.  The  Heredi- 
tary Pigments.  The  X-Ray  and  Radium  and 
Sterility.  The  Glands  and  Cancer  Houses. 

Pigmentation,  a  deposit  of  melanin  granules,  is  in 
direct  relation  with  disorder  of  the  adrenals,  or  the 
thyroid  in  Graves'  disease,  or  in  pregnancy  when 
the  glands  are  occupied  with  the  new  life. 

When  the  pigmentation  of  the  skin  shows  at  the 
time  the  hair  whitens,  the  glands  are  failing,  and 
meat  as  food  becomes  dangerous — as  it  is  in  age; 
in  Graves'  disease ;  as  it  sometimes  throws  the  pig- 
mented pregnant  woman  into  elampsia.  The  inter- 
mediary is  missing,  and  it  is  as  though  the  proteins 
were  injected  under  the  skin  and  got  into  the  or- 
ganism without  preparation.  (It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  what  is  in  the  alimentary  canal  is  not 

50 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    51 

yet  in  the  organism.)  That  meat  is  positive  poison 
to  a  patient  with  Graves'  disease  is,  unfortunately, 
too  frequently  proven  by  the  disobedience  of  faith- 
less patients,  who  long  for  meat  as  eagerly  as  the 
diabetic  craves  sweets. 

Gland  failure,  proteid  poisoning,  hair  whitening 
and  loss,  skin  pigmentation — are  all  at  the  time  of 
cancer  incidence,  and  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  close  inter-relations. 

Pigmentation,  which  may  be  potential  malig- 
nancy, is  either  a  specialized  function  (a  reinforce- 
ment) ;  or,  from  imperfect  metabolism  (an  inter- 
ference). 

As  it  is  the  interaction  between  the  nuclear  and 
cell  body  which  gives  rise  to  the  secretions ;  as  glands 
govern  secretions;  as  malignancy  shows  an  altered 
distribution  of  nuclear  matter — chromatin  being  dis" 
charged  into  the  cytoplasm — "preserving  the  habit 
of  growth,  but  having  lost  the  potentiality  for  dif- 
ferentiating"— it  is  on  best  pathological  authority 
that  this  intimate  relation  is  claimed.  See  Adami, 
724,  776,  925,  P.  of  P.* 


*"Van  Leyden  has  extracted  from  the  normal  liver  of  animals 
a  preparation  of  ferments  which  applied  to  tumors  is  said  to 
have  caused  their  disappearance."     Adami,  page  780. 

Altered  distribution  of  nuclear  matter  • 

Farmer,  Moore  and  Walker,  Bashford  have  withdrawn  their 
views  regarding  "the  ring  form  of  chromosomes  such  as  are  seen  in 
process  of  nuclear  reduction   of  the   oocyte   and  the   spermacyte." 


52  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

Pigments,  iron  and  sulphur  free,  are  like  the  dark- 
ening of  certain  proteins — as  the  browning  of  a 
cut  apple — and  are  "of  the  nature  of  members  of  the 
aromatic  series  of  derivatives  of  the  protein  mole- 
cule." 

Black  substances  are  transmitted  by  heredity. 
The  placing  of  this  hereditary  pigment  in  the  germi- 
nal cells  to  set  the  hereditary  type,  if  not  the  sex 
itself,  will  illustrate  the  asexual  pigmentation  which 
goes  on  in  the  tissue  cells  at  the  time  the  reproduc- 
tive cycle  wanes  and  when  all  such  pigmentations 
may  be  potential  malignancies.  Since  the  time  of 
the  "cell  rest"  theory  of  Cohnheim,  it  has  been  im- 
possible to  turn  the  mind  from  the  reproductive  view 
of  cancer. 

The  glands  and  the  germinal  pigment  de- 
termining SEX,  SUGGEST  AN  UNDER-PIGMENTATION 
CAUSING  AN  ASEXUAL  CELL  PRODUCTION  WHICH  IS 
MALIGNANCY. 

As  early  as  1908  the  present  writer  published  the 
view  that  there  were  radial  influences  within  the 
glands  which  had  relation  with  malignancy.  The 
1913  Medical  Congress  at  London  gave  first  public 
recognition  to  a  similar  purport. 

The  radial  focussing  upon  the  rudimentary  color 
body  in  the  germinal  cell  to  determine  sex  is  dia- 
grammed as  per  figure  on  page  53. 


THE  LATEST  ESTIMATE  OF  THE  NUMBER 
Or  CHROMOSOMES  IN  THE  HUMAN 
TISSUE    CELL   IS    NOW   24   INSTEAD   OF   IS 


chr. 


A  B 

The  Contra-dance  ok  the  Chromosomes. 

"This  is  the  bright  color  line  about  which  has  centered  most 
of  humanity's  love,  ethics,  religion  and  law, — The  "quadrille"  or 
"contra-dance"  of  the  Chromosomes,  in  their  mitotic  field  before 
fusion. 

This  diagram,  after  Wilson,  Morgan,  Hartog,  Adami,  shows 
the  supposed  "contra-dance"  of  the  Chromosomes  in  the  human 
nucleus  while  "resting"  before  fusion.  Human  tissue  cells  are  sup- 
posed to  contain  16  chromosomes,  and  human  germinal  cells  would 
then  contain  eight  chromosomes  for  each  sex. 

"A"  shows  eight  for  eight  from  each  sex,  from  which  even 
combination  in  the  lower  forms  of  life  a  male  invariably  results. 
"B"  shows  the  rudimentary,  or  missing, — formerly  called  the 
Accessory — chromosome,  from  which  odd  number  presentation 
in  lower  forms,  a  female  invariably  results. 

As  the  "resting"  period  before  fusion  is  said  to  be  passed  in 
"nourishing"  the  hungry  male  element  up  to  the  tune  or  color 
required  for  fusion,  it  is  to  be  seen  that  equilibrium,  ratio,  re- 
inforcement and  interference  influences  which  determine  sex,  may 
focus  upon  this  rudimentary,  or  missing,  chromosome. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    53 

Zoologists  tell  us  there  were  originally  three  gen- 
ders in  lower  life  forms : 

"A  given  species  may  consist  of  three  different  types  of 
individuals,  male,  female  and  indifferent,  each  multiplying 
its  own  line.  Complicated  alternations  of  generations  oc- 
cur, asexual  and  sexual.  It  is  interesting  to  note  sexual 
forms  produce  more  resistant  forms  capable  of  braving 
adverse  conditions  or  violent  changes."  (E.  A.  Minchin 
Prof.  Protzoology,  London  University,  Ency.  Brit.  XXII, 
487.) 

Therefore,  if  radial  action  upon  a  cell  center  may 
influence  male  and  female,  with  equal  facility  it  may 
influence  the  third  (now  outgrown  and  abandoned 
type  for  the  human  )  ;  i.  e.,  the  asexual  type  of  cell 
reproduction.  This  is  the  precise  type  of  the  malig- 
nant cell. 

The  subtle  influences  which  go  to  determine  sex 
may  thus  be  considered.* 


*Mothers  of  sons  have  been  compared  with  mothers  of  daugh- 
ters as  biologically  different.  The  rise  and  fall  of  male  ca 
pacity  and  prestige — in  mixed  families — have  been  scanned  for  a 
relation  to  the  sex  secret  of  their  offspring,  born  under  the  re- 
spective curves  of  prestige  or  eclipse.  Statistics  have  been  culled 
from  the  sex  of  offsprings  of  divorced  couples.  The  excess  of 
male  births  in  time  of  national  (not  individual)  disaster — such 
as  war,  famine,  pestilence,  earthquake — has  been  cited.  Heloise 
has  been  called  the  type  of  son-mother;  Delilah,  the  type  of 
daughter  mother  to  Sampson.  Anti-feminists  have  cited 
"conjugal  sabottage"  as  cause  as  well  as  result  of  the  nearly  two 
million  excess  female  over  males  in  the  population  of  England, 
and  have  stated  that  the  inequality  may  only  be  starting,  because 


54  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

The  glands,  the  sex  cycle,  sterility,  the 
x-ray  and  radium. 

Here  again  we  have  surely  related  sub-compo- 
nents, biological  and  radio-active. 

The  sterility  of  vegetables  and  animals  induced 
by  X-ray  and  radio-activity,  is  too  well  known  to 
need  citation.  Even  the  trypanosomes  are  influ- 
enced by  these  rays.  The  X-ray  treatment  of  fibroid 
tumors,  inducing  sterility  from  three  months  to 
permanency,  has  now  a  growing  list  for  study  in  the 
literature. 

The  sterilization  of  water  by  the  ultra-violet  rays 
aspires  to  remove  typhoid  from  large  encampments 
in  the  future. 

The  quick  response  of  enlarged  gland  in  the 
leukemias  to  the  X-ray  is  another  familiar  relation. 
And  the  frequent  involvement  of  the  glands  by 
leukemic  disorders  after  double  ovariotomy,  is  an- 
other study-deserving  connection.     This  is  espe- 


of  the  increasing  feministic  rebellion.  The  queen  bee  is  probably 
made  to  differ  from  the  female  "workers"  among  the  bees  by  a 
similar  radial  reinforcement,  or  interference,  process. 

This  is  as  interesting  as  offensive,  if  true ;  but  the  virilism  of 
the  _  male-determining  element  may  depend  even  more  upon  its 
intrinsic  vitality  than  upon  any  reinforcement,  or  interference,  re- 
ceived from  the  female  during  the  "rest"  period  of  the  contra- 
danse  of  the  chromosomes.  This  has  relation  to  the  subject  as 
illustrating  what  may  be  done  to  divert  germinal  cells  from  one  sex 
to  the  other;  with  possibility  of  reversion  to  the  asexual  form  of 
cell  reproduction,  as  found  in  cocidea  and  zorozoa. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    55 

cially  significant,  since  the  "malignancy"  of  the  leu- 
kemias  and  pernicious  anemias  is  almost  as  severe, 
though  not  as  speedy,  as  the  other  malignancies. 

The  glands  and  cancer  houses  : 

While  cancer  is  not  hereditary  nor  yet  contagious, 
the  so  called  "cancer  houses"  (which  have  sheltered 
more  than  one  case  of  cancer)  should  not  be 
ascribed  to  coincidence  or  chance.  By  so  doing  we 
fail  to  trace  the  source  of  cancer  cause. 

When  we  recall  that  the  maximum  cancer  death 
rate  is  in  Switzerland — where  thyroid  troubles  are 
rife;  where  the  water  supply  may  be  traced  to  a 
melted  snow  source;  where  the  ultra-violet  ray  re- 
lation of  snow  is  also  seen  in  the  known  snow  blind- 
ness from  its  ultra-violet  rays;  we  must  reach  a 
conclusion  that  topographical  influences  have  re- 
lation with  gland  disorders — if  not  with  malignancy 
production. 

The  water  supply,  a  chimney  condition  of  imper- 
fect coal  combustion,  certain  magnetic  influences — 
all  should  be  considered.  If  a  steamer's  engine  can 
demagnetize  a  watch,  the  radium  in  surface  rocks 
is  as  capable  of  sub-component  interference  or  re- 
inforcement. So  with  coal  and  pitch  in  the  mines. 
W.  Hanna  Thomson  ("Graves'  Disease,"  page  111) 
says: 

"St.  Leger  relates  that  youths  in  certain  townships  in 


S- 


56  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

France,  in  order  to  escape  military  service,  drank  copiously 
from  a  well,  noted  for  causing  goitre.  Their  thyroid  glands 
enlarged,  and  by  this  means  they  escaped  military  duty. 
Lombroso  relates  a  similar  case  in  Lombardy  where  men 
made  themselves  goitrous  in  15  days." 

There  is  at  present  under  investigation  a  town 
in  Wisconsin  where  men  and  women  and  even 
horses,  dogs  and  cats  are  commonly  goitrous. 

The  rays  surely  interfere  with  a  process  neces- 
sary for  growth;  or  reinforce  a  control  process 
which  retards  growth.  And  each  "cancer  house" 
should  start  very  serious  investigations  in  all  the 
possible  lines,  according  to  its  location. 

We  are  not  unmindful  of  Bashford's  dictum  that 
there  are  no  cancer  houses,  or  cancer  cages.  This 
agrees  with  our  theory  in  the  case  of  200,000  planted 
mice.  It  agrees  with  our  theory  in  the  case  of  any 
number  of  human  cancer  cases  gathered  together  in 
one  institution. 

But  we  register  a  possible  dissent  with  regard 
to  what  are  called  coincidences  of  several  cancers 
to  a  house,  occurring  spontaneously. 

The  geological  aspect  of  cancer  needs  research. 
The  radium  found  in  the  rocks  of  the  Simplon  tun- 
nel by  Prof.  Joly  may  have  direct  bearing  on  the 
goitrous  and  cancerous  high  curves  of  the  Alps  re- 
gion. 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    57 

Pathologists  may  be  as  reluctant  to  accept  the 
new  factor  of  radio-activity  as  are  the  astrono- 
mers. 


VIII 

Giant-Cell  Malignancy  Easy  to  Cure. 
Ray  Wave  Ratioto-Cell-Curve.    Sizes  of  the 
Varied  Ray  Waves. 

As  giant-cell  malignancy  is  readily  cured  by  the 
ray-therapy,  there  may  be  importance  in  the  ratio 
of  ray  wave  length  to  the  cell  curve.  That  it  does 
not  form  metastasis  may  or  may  not  be  because  of 
its  cell  size. 

If  small  round-cell  malignancy  could  be  trans- 
planted with  giant-cell  malignancy — for  which  we 
have,  apparently,  well  fitting  curable  ray~— the  con- 
quest of  malignancy  would  be  at  hand. 

The  ultra-violet  light  wave  very  accurately  cor- 
responds with  the  curve  of  the  red  blood  corpuscle. 

The  X-ray  wave  is  1/10,000  of  the  length  of  this. 

The  y  ray  is  1/100  of  the  length  of  the  X-ray, 
or  1/1,000,000  of  the  length  of  the  ultra-violet  wave 
ray.* 


♦Dr.   Chas.  Parson,,  Columbia  College,  March  31,  1914.     (Chief 
Chemist,  Department  of  Interior.) 

58 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    59 

The  "pin  head  to  St.  Peter's  dome"  contrast  has 
been  used  to  illustrate  the  disparity  between  the 
spermatozoon  and  the  ovum — a  far  less  variant  ra- 
tio— which  allows  the  invasion  of  a  huge  cell  by  an 
infinitely  smaller  provoker  of  growth. 

Size  relation  in  biology  for  such  stimulation  may 
be  as  important  as  velocity  is  in  radio-activity  to 
overcome  the  friction  line,  and  acquire  the  property 
of  inter  penetrability. 


There  is  an  analogy  between  the  spermatozoon 
which  enters  a  relatively  gigantic  cell  and  rein- 
forces elements  which  start  a  growth — and  the  ray 
wave  of  one-to-a-million  curve  relation,  which  also 
enters  a  cell  and  reinforces  certain  color  bodies  and 
also  starts  a  growth. 

This  is  all  the  more  significant  when  we  reflect 
that  the  difference  between  the  growth  started  by 
the  first  and  second  entrant  is  precisely  that  which 
we  find  between  the  sexual  and  the  asexual  gene- 
rations of  the  algues  in  their  alternate  generations 
— an  unvarying  mathematical  difference  in  color 
bodies. 

But  there  is  a  further  tremendous  difference  in 
the  subsequent  issue — the  normal  process  is  one  of 
differentiation,  with  definite  laws  of  mass  and  form. 
The  second  is  a  lawless  combination  of  monstrosity 


60  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

and  malignancy  because  something  which  should 
limit  and  differentiate  is  not  there. 

As  Prof.  Adami  has  pointed  out  (page  776),  "the 
properties  of  oldest  acquirement  are  the  last  to  be 
lost."  Undifferentiated  growth — the  growth  of  cells 
of  the  same  kind — was  the  oldest  property.  Sex 
life  brought  the  differentiation;  we  then  had  cells 
of  many  kinds  instead  of  cells  of  one  kind. 

Cancer  cells  thus  have  lost  the  latest  property  ac- 
quired— differentiation,  which  seems  to  have  been 
sex-conferred.  This  is  why  we  say  it  is  as  if  malig- 
nancy were  all  maleness,  or  all  femaleness>  respec- 
tively, dissolved  from  the  tissue  cells. 

Our  confused  conception  of  what  happens  at  a 
cell  nucleus  is  being  cleared  up.  Leibig  said,  "The 
enzymes  owe  their  power  of  producing  fermenta- 
tion to  the  motions  of  certain  atoms  or  groups  of 
atoms."  We  now  penetrate  the  atom,  and  discuss 
the  sub-components,  and  the  influences  that  work 
upon  sub-components. 

The  radio-active  power  to  delay  or  arrest  fer- 
mentation entirely,  probably  depends  upon  an  inter- 
ference, and  not  a  reinforcement.  And  the  work 
is  wrought  upon  a  sub-component  of  the  atom — in 
philosophical  terms,  "by  detaching  fractions  of  du- 
ration from  fractions  of  space." 

Malignancy,  then,  seems  to  be  a  state  wherein  is 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     61 

only  one  half  of  the  normal  color  at  nucleolar  cen- 
ters. Please  remember,  too,  that  the  new  theory  of 
colors  is  that  they  are  the  mathematical  sums  of 
their  components. 

Therefore,  malignancy  when  cured  by  radio-ac- 
tivity is  cured  because  radio-activity  has  rein- 
forced its  color.  It  is  caused  by  radio-activity  when 
radio-activity  interferes  with  its  color — as  it  does 
when  changing  yellow  phosphorus  to  red  phospho- 
rus. 

If  this  be  true,  the  problem  is  to  isolate  the  sub- 
component which  reinforces  from  that  which  inter- 
feres. 

The  profession  has  had  a  very  definite  "lead"  in 
the  direction  of  color,  already.  The  Eosin  Selenium 
combination — a  red  powder  soluble  in  warm  water, 
whose  composition  is  not  yet  made  public — has  been 
used  to  prevent  normal  cells  from  absorbing  metals 
in  chemo-therapeutical  experiments.  Sodium  sele- 
nate  and  tellurate  are  salts  whose  metal  is  reduced 
by  living  cells  and  deposited  near  the  nucleus  as  a 
black  or  red  residue. 

Perhaps  when  we  can  put  the  color  into  the  cell 
with  radio-activity  instead  of  chemistry,  we  will 
have  solved  the  problem.  Perhaps  a  harmless  color 
bearing  bacterium  (analogous  with  the  use  of  the 
Bulgarian  bacillus  in  the  colon),  may  be   found 


62  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

which  will  do  this  work.  Bacteriology,  therefore, 
may  mark  out  the  sub-components,  and  further,  put 
sufficient  color  into  the  cell  centers.  But  biology 
may  be  needed  to  overcome  the  half -quantum  cells 
and  substitute  a  growth  wherein  the  continent  cell 
nucleus  contains  the  normal  number  of  cell  bodies. 

If  a  freshly  removed  tubal  gestation  were  trans- 
planted into  a  malignancy  so  as  to  continue  growth 
doubtless  some  surprises  would  await  the  experi- 
menter. 

The  transplant  of  sound  organs  from  accidental 
sources,  was  referred  to  by  the  present  writer  in  a 
paper  read  before  the  New  York  Obstetrical  Society 
in  1910,  as  follows: 

"The  Imperial  Cancer  Research  Fund  in  seven  years  has 
studied  200,000  mice.  It  has  sixty  different  species  of 
cancer  growing.  It  is  still  growing  the  identical  cancers 
which  have  been  transplanted  through  four  successive  gen- 
erations of  mice.  It  fires  the  imagination  to  see  proved  a 
relatively  immortal  living  entity,  nourished  by  a  great- 
grandsire's  blood,  transplanted  and  retransplanted,  and  still 
promising  a  continuous  life.    I  quote: 

"  'Seven  years  ago  no  one  conceived  it  possible  that  por- 
tions of  the  mammalian  organism  could  be  kept  growing  for 
a  period  four  times  the  life  of  the  whole  animal/ 

"Could  this  same  process  succeed  in  an  antithetical  be- 
nign sense,  no  sound  organ — from  adrenal  to  brain — would 
ever  be  interred  with  our  accidental  dead,  but  instead 
transplanted  upon  the  living  defective." 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY     63 

Since  we  know  that  glandular  feeding  will  change 
the  mathematics  involved  in  the  amount  of  glucose 
or  levulose  ingested — by  altering  the  rejection 
point;  since  we  also  know  that  increasing  the  ve- 
locity of  a  sub-component  may  release  the  iodine 
from  our  thyroids;  since  we  may  measure  the  dif- 
ference between  500  million  million  vibrations  per 
second  and  400  million  million  vibrations  per  second 
— as  shown  by  the  colors  of  yellow  phosphorous  and 
red  phosphorus  respectively,  when  demoted  in  ve- 
locity— since  it  is  routine  surgery  to  make  similar 
vibratory  changes  in  castrations  and  ovariotomies 
— we  feel  justified  in  tying  the  gland  cycle  firmly  to 
the  question  of  malignancy. 

This  includes  the  malignancy  of  the  mind,  that 
of  the  leukemias,  and  that  of  Graves'  disease,  as 
well  as  the  more  rapid  malignancies  popularly  called 
cancer. 


IX 

The  Locks  and  the  Keys  Which  Need  Fit- 
ting and  Tagging.  A  Relation  of  Size,  or 
Space,  as  Well  as  Velocity,  Involved  in  the 
Ray  Wave-Lengths. 

Scientists  have  presumed  to  figure  upon  the  dis- 
tances between  the  electrons  which  make  up  an 
atom,  and  to  give  this  a  relation  to  the  diameter  of 
the  electron  itself.  This  distance  is  probably  one 
hundred  million  times  the  diameter  of  the  electron. 

In  The  Philosophy  of  Radio-Activity  the  au- 
thor has  contended  that  as  definite  a  reason  and 
law  exist  for  the  measure  of  the  short  orbit  as  for 
the  time  and  distance  involved  in  the  Earth's  journey- 
around  the  sun. 

By  the  same  warrant  it  is  contended  that  there 
is  a  law  under  the  ratio  of  ray-wave  length  to  cell 
curve.  If  the  giant-cell  sarcoma  melts  like  wax  un- 
der radium,  there  is  a  ratio  in  this  case  measurably 
differing  from  that  obtaining  in  the  small  round- 
cell  malignancy. 

64 


OR  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY    65 

If  rays  of  one  ratio-to-cell-curve,  cause  a  cancer 
which  rays  of  a  vastly  different  ratio-to-cell-curve 
speedily  cure :  there  is  a  definite  problem  in  mathe- 
matics for  the  experts  to  solve. 

In  "The  Philosophy  of  Radio-Activity"  the 
writer  has  also  tried  to  establish  the  identity  of  "the 
thing  which  changes,"  under  all  the  qualities  and 
indwelling  all  the  conditions. 

Is  there  any  doubt  that  the  X-ray,  taken  from  the 
ordinary  street  current,  is  other  than  the  ultra-violet 
light  wave  altered  in  its  proportions  ?  Probably,  the 
y-ray  is  simply  the  light-ray-wave,  re-subdivided 
to  the  extreme  of  smallness.  If  so,  we  are  dealing 
only  with  "the  thing  which  changes" ;  and  it  is  a 
question  of  quality — of  mathematics,  of  dosage,  of 
ratio-to-cell-curve — in  using  solar  energy  to  cause 
and  to  cure  malignancy. 

Therefore,  in  the  baldest  form  of  diagram  we 
place  in  opposition  the  fragments  of  the  missing 
whole.  Whoever  fits  the  parts  together  reads  the 
secret : 

THE  RADIAL  SUB-COMPONENTS 

(a)  The    Solar    Ray,   whose   ultra-violet   wave 

length  fits  the  blood  corpuscles  curve ; 

(b)  The  X-ray,    made  from  the  ordinary  street 

current,  1/10,000  the  wave  length  of 
the  first. 


66  THE  RADIAL  SUB-COMPONENTS 

(c)  The  y-RAY,   1/100  of  the  wave  length  of  the 
last;  one  million  times  smaller  than 
the  ultra-violet  ray  wave — "the  pin- 
head  to  St.  Peter's  dome"  at  the 
cell  border. 
Thus,   the   solar   energy,   as   "the  thing  which 
changes,"  in  different  qualities  and  sizes  touches 
the  curve  of  the  cell  circumference. 
THE  BIOLOGICAL  SUB-COMPONENTS 

a)  The  Chlorophyll,     storing  the  solar  energy 

in  the  vegetable  kingdom ; 

b)  The  Ozone,     forming  at  the  leaf-edge  in  the 

process; 

c)  The  Nitrogen,    passing  through  the  vegetable 

Intermediary  to — 

d)  The  Animal  Frame,   made  up  of  protein  sub- 

stances, in  contra-distinction  with 

e)  The  Animal  Force  Reservoir,    consisting  of 

stored  carbohydrates. 

f )  The  Glands,     comprising  sex  differentiation, 

color,  reduction  of  chromosomes  from 
tissue  cell  to  germinal  cell  number; 
their  invalidity  involving  loss  of  col- 
or, abnormal  pigmentation,  loss  of  re- 
sistance, loss  of  border-line  integrity, 
resembling  a  demotion  to  asexual 
reproduction,  without  the  differentiat- 
ing counter-process. 


THE  RADIAL  SUB-COMPONENTS  67 

(g)  The  First  Acquired  and  the  Last  Yielded 
Being  the  process  of  growth  without 
differentiation.      The    last    acquired 
was  sex  and  its  accompanying  differ- 
entiation ;  hence  this  is  the  first  to  go. 
The  application  of  some  of  the  radial  to  some 
of  the  biological  factors  reinforces  (or  interferes) 
and  cures  cancer.    The  application  of  some  others 
of  the  radial  to  certain  biological,  interferes  (or 
reinforces)  and  causes  cancer. 

Whoever  picks  the  needed  sub-component  from 
the  first  group  and  applies  it  properly  to  the  falter- 
ing (or  overspeeding)  sub-component  of  the  second 
group,  will  save  200  lives  a  day  in  the  United  States 
alone. 

FINIS. 


NOTES 

Some  partially  supporting  views  from  institutional  and 
duly  recognized  pathological  authority,  will  be  found  in 
the  following  excerpts  from  Professor  James  Ewing's  pa- 
per on  "Precancerous  Diseases  and  Precancerous  Lesions/' 
from  the  New  York  Medical  Record,  December  5,  1914. 
SOLAR  LIGHT: 

"Senile  and  presenile  degeneration  of  the  skin  takes  the 
form  of  keratosis,  and  is  seen  in  the  seaman's  skin,  and 
other  disorders  leading  to  multiple  cancer.  It  affects  ex- 
posed regions  subjected  to  repeated  irritation  of  sunlight, 
heat  and  cold."    (See  page  48.) 

GALLSTONES  FAVOR  CANCER :    (THE  RELATION 
IS   CLOSE   BETWEEN   OBESITY   AND   GALL- 
STONES.) 
"The  most  notable  example  of  carcinoma  following  chron- 
ic inflammation  is  probably  that  observed  in  the  gall-bladder 
from  cholelithiasis.     The  disease  form  5  or  6  per  cent,  of 
all  carcinomas  (Kaufmann),  and  is  four  or  five  times  as 
frequent  in  women  as  in  men.     Gallstones  were  present 
in  69  per  cent,  of  Musser's  100  cases ;  70  per  cent,  in  Fut 
terer's ;  85  per  cent,  in  Zenker's ;  91  per  cent,  in  Cour- 
voisier's;  95  per  cent,  in  Siegert's,  and  100  per  cent,  in 
Janowski's.     (See  page  37.) 

69 


70  NOTES 

THE  INTEGRITY  OF  TISSUE  FRONTIERS  OF  VI- 
TAL IMPORTANCE: 

"The  cervical  erosion  is  the  most  definite  established 
lesion  known  to  precede  cervical  carcinoma."  (See  page 
66.) 

COAL  TAR  DYES  ASSOCIATED  WITH  PITCH  AND 
SOOT  AS  CANCER  CAUSE 

"Specific  vesical  irritants  as  observed  in  analin  workers 
are  especially  effective  in  producing  vesical  carcinomas, 
chiefly  at  the  ureteral  orifices  (Rehn,  Leichtenstern).  A 
frgh  proportion  (50%)  of  these  tumors  are  malignant  (Ley- 
bert)."  (See  page  55.) 
PROTEIN  DIET: 

"In  fish,  the  functional  overactivity  and  hypertrophy  of 
the  thyroid  observed  in  crowded  ponds  where  the  animals 
are  fed  on  protein  diet  leads  in  a  small  proportion  of  cases 
to  malignant  overgrowth,  which  is  a  specific  form  of  can- 
cer. This  condition  has  been  produced  under  experimental 
conditions  and  fully  traced  by  Gaylord." 

(See  page  42.)  The  foreman  of  a  well-known  trout  hatch- 
ery expressed  to  the  writer  the  layman's  conviction  that 
thyroid  cancer  in  Adirondack  trout  is  due  to  the  high  per- 
centage of  iron  in  the  water,  disclaiming  any  cancer  in  his 
own  trout  from  the  chopped  meat  diet.) 
THE  ELUSIVE  BIRTH  MOMENT  OF  THE  CANCER 
PROCESS : 

"Ribbert  states  that  no  one  has  ever  seen  the  beginnings 
of  a  mammary  cancer.  Moreover,  when  a  cancer  does  de- 
velop in  chronic  mastitis,  it  very  soon  overgrows  and  oblit- 
erates the  original  lesion.  There  is  often  a  perceptible  gap 
between  the  atypical  proliferation  and  the  smallest  estab- 


NOTES  71 

lished  carcinomas.     Hence  comes  the  impression  that  when 
carcinoma  is  grafted  on  mastitis  a  wholly  new  disease  is 
added."     (See  page  59.) 
GRAVES'  DISEASE: 

"There  is  reason  to  believe  that  thyroid  cancer  of  young 
girls  and  possibly  at  later  ages  sometimes  arises  under  paral- 
lel conditions  (to  the  thyroid  cancer  in  fish,  quoted  above). 
Few  cases  of  thyroid  carcinoma  develop  in  subjects  with 
entirely  normal  thyroid  history,  but  many  follow  goiter, 
intersitial  thyroiditis  and  Graves'  Disease.  (See  page  50.) 
"...  On  the  other  hand,  extreme  grades  of  some- 
what atypical  cellular  hyperplasia  with  giant  cells  and  ill- 
formed  alveoli,  are  observed  in  the  wholly  benign  goiter  of 
Graves'  Disease." 


THE  CANCER  PROBLEM.* 

By  EUGENE  COLEMAN  SAVIDGE,  M.D.. 

NEW   TORE. 

"It  must  be  confessed  that  in  spite  of  the  time,  brains, 
energy,  and  money  which  have  been  expended  during  the 
past  few  years  in  the  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  can- 
cer in  almost  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  little  or  no 
apparent  progress  has  been  made." — Editorial,  Medical 
Record,  June  29,  1907. 

The  present  writer  is  as  orthodox  as  any  mem- 
ber of  this  society  regarding  the  prompt  operation 
for  surely  recognized  malignant  disease.  He  is  not 
alone,  however,  in  asking  whether  life  is  really 
prolonged  by  surgery  in  some  cases,  notably  in 
malignant  diseases  of  the  uterus.  Nevertheless,  the 
majority  of  the  profession  at  present,  for  the  lack 
of  better  resource,  advise  prompt  operation.  But, 
because  such  provisional  attitude  is  apt  to  grow  in- 
to a  habit  during  the  years  when  we  are  losing  our 
plasticity,  is  just  why  we  should  keep  additionally 
alert  to  other  possibilities, — while  not  wavering  in 
the  best  we  have. 

When  your  Chairman  drafted  me  for  this  paper 
it  was  my  intention  to  present  you  the  sifting  from 
a  wide  range  of  reading.  I  have  not  found  time  to 
do  this;  instead,  I  shall  try  to  ask  some  questions 

*Read  at  a  meeting  of  the  Section  on  Obstetrics  and 
Gynecology  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine, 
March  26,  1908. 


74  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

which  will  bring  out  your  experience  in  the  dis- 
cussion. 

This  society  will  probably  agree  as  follows  re- 
garding the  state  popularly  known  as  cancer.  (The 
subdivisions  will  litter  and  obscure  our  discussion)  : 

i.  The  quotation  heading  this  paper  has  ac- 
curately stated  our  present  relation  to  the  problem 
of  cancer. 

2.  That  researches  as  to  cancer  cause  based  on 
bacteriological  transmission — to  go  into  detail — 
have  yielded  no  result.  Therefore  nothing  can  be 
expected  from  either  antiseptic  or  antitoxin  treat- 
ment. 

3.  That  even  if  the  theory  of  wandering  cell 
from  embryonal  life  were  capable  of  proof,  such 
proof  would  give  us  nothing  of  value  in  treatment. 
We  could  never  penetrate  fetal  life  and  anchor  the 
displaced  or  wandering  cell. 

4.  That  though  surgery  has  done  thoroughly 
clean  work,  at  least  in  uterine  cases,  it  has  been 
followed  with  prompt  recurrence  and  speedy  death. 

If  this  society  does  so  agree  it  must  necessarily 
hold  that  our  present  resource,  while  the  best  we 
have,  is  unsatisfactory ;  and  that  our  position,  while 
not  abandoning  our  best  and  time-honored  resource, 
is  one  of  "hopeful  expectation." 

Notwithstanding  the  foregoing  statements,  the 
writer  believes  there  are  signs  of  promise  important 
enough  to  merit  studied  consideration.  We  have 
an  indication  of  the  cancer  cause.  We  have  a  sane 
hope,  confirmatory  of  this  indication,  regarding  the 
successful  treatment  of  cancer.  This  indication, 
which  becomes  more  conclusive  the  more  we  study 
it,  lies  in  the  physical  variation  in  the  isomeric  qual- 
ity of  the  most  primitive  elements  entering  into  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY         75 

composition  of  protoplasm.  (The  isomers,  let  us 
refresh  our  minds,  are  "substances  having  the  same 
centesimal  composition,  but  whose  molecules  have 
essentially  different  structure  and  chemical  prop- 
erties.") 

The  trail  of  our  search,  therefore,  leads  directly 
to  the  subtle  mystery  why  elemental  carbon  exists 
as  coal  and  as  diamond ;  or  why  certain  substances 
are,  under  varying  conditions,  dextrorotary  and 
levorotary — diverting  the  rays  in  one  quality  to  the 
right,  in  another,  to  the  left — when  submitted  to 
polarized  light. 

The  hope  of  successful  cure  lies  in  the  restora- 
tion, or  the  preservation,  of  certain  ferments  the 
secretions  containing  which  seem  to  be  altered,  or 
abolished,  long  before  the  human  organism  reaches 
the  state  of  cancer.  As  the  ptyalin  of  the  saliva, 
for  example,  mysteriously  changes  starch  into  dex- 
trin and  sugar  in  a  manner  similar  to  the  mysterious 
transformation  of  the  isomers  from  right  to  left 
rotary  quality,  and  vice  versa,  from  one  side  of  the 
polariscope  to  the  other,  this  application  of  fer- 
ments to  changed  isomeric  quality  is  an  exact  dove- 
tailing between  theory  of  cause  and  hope  of  cure. 
It  may  be  added  that  it  is  not  based  upon  so  simple 
a  procedure  as  the  application  of  trypsin  to  the 
local  manifestation  of  cancer.  The  writer  doubts 
if  the  cancer  problem  will  ever  be  solved  by  the  ap- 
plication of  a  juice  to  a  spot;  or  even  the  hypo- 
dermatic application  of  a  ferment  to  the  organism. 

Without  entering  too  deeply  upon  the  great  work 
on  fermentation  by  Pasteur — beginning  about  i860, 
passing  through  the  crucible  of  indifference  if  not 
ridicule,  but  now  fully  entered  into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  medical  knowledge — let  us  consider  in  out- 
line its  connection  with  cancer. 


76  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

Pasteur  discovered  the  dimorphism  of  the  double 
tartrate  crystal.  One  isomer  in  solution  is  dextro- 
rotary  in  the  spectroscope;  the  other  is  levorotary. 
That  is,  one  of  these  varieties  of  the  same  thing 
turns  the  polarized  light  to  the  right,  the  other 
turns  it  to  the  left.  As  a  laboratory  test,  to  sep- 
arate these  two  diverging  forms  of  +he  same  thing, 
they  were  subjected  to  certain  fermentative  tests. 
The  yeast  plant  ferment  was  found  to  act  on  the 
left  isomer,  while  the  ferment  of  the  mold  acted 
upon  the  right  solution.  Please  stick  a  pin  in  this 
fact;  it  has  a  vital  bearing  on  what  follows.  The 
left-hand  isomer,  susceptible  to  the  yeast  ferment, 
is  indifferent  to  the  mold  ferment;  and  the  right- 
hand  isomer,  susceptible  to  the  mold,  is  unacted 
upon  by  the  yeast  plant. 

Another  important  point  accented  by  Pasteur 
was  the  difference  between  the  same  thing — to 
use  an  apparent  Hibernianism — according  to  its 
derivation.  The  difference  between  laboratory  pro- 
ducts and  the  same  substances  derived  from  organic 
compounds  was  this:  the  natural  organic  products 
rotate  the  polarized  light  either  to  the  right  or  left 
according  to  quality. — but  always  one  way,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other  isomer.  Or,  as  Duclaux, 
quoted  by  Beard,  says:  "Nature  alone  knows  how 
to  manufacture  one  isomer  without  making  the 
other." 

So  much  for  the  "asymmetry  of  the  carbon  atom 
and  the  nitrogen  pentavalent  atom," — to  quote  the 
resonant  technique.  Now,  Beard,  building  upon 
Pasteur's  work,  or  independently  of  it,  has  discov- 
ered an  analogous  asymmetry  in  the  organic  as 
well  as  in  the  inorganic  world.  In  certain  fish  and 
amphibians,  he  has  found  the  existence  of  "two 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        77 

distinct  and  separate  nervous  systems  in  their  life 
history, — the  transient  nervous  system  functioning 
for  a  time,  then  suddenly  begins  to  fade  away  in 
slow  degeneration." 

_  This  analogy  in  the  organic  world  may  be  simply 
significant;  it  may  not  mean  that  cosmic  laws  act 
on  the  elemental  compounds  of  the  ganglionic  pro- 
toplasm sufficiently  to  divert  the  rotatory  quality; 
as,  for  example,  the  irritation  of  a  nerve  center  has 
produced  glycosuria.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may 
mean  more.  As  the  embryological  development  of 
the  human  individual  passes  from  the  simple  cell 
all  the  way  up  the  line,  distinctly  through  the  fish- 
life  analogy  (remember,  surgery  is  sometimes  nec- 
essary to  close  the  branchial  clefts  remaining  open 
after  birth,  as  evidence  of  the  time  in  the  evolution 
of  the  fetus  when  it  had  gills  like  a  fish) — so  might 
it  be  within  the  same  range  of  possibility  that  there 
is  a  similar  asymmetry  of  the  nervous  system  in 
fetal  life  as  that  found  in  certain  fish  by  Beard. 
But  this  would  prove  too  much  for  the  present 
writer's  exposition;  it  would  throw  part  of  the 
causation  back  into  fetal  life,  and  except  as  ex- 
plaining fetal  or  adolescent  cancers,  would  help  us 
no  more  for  practical  curative  purposes  than  the 
wandering  cell  theory  of  Conheim.  I  prefer  to  cite 
it  as  an  analogy,  that  it  may  not  disturb  the  bright- 
er hope. 

This  asymmetry  both  in  the  organic  and  the  in- 
organic compounds,  like  that  of  the  two  nervous 
systems,  in  the  words  of  Beard,  "is  based  upon 
the  fundamental  verity  of  the  asymmetry  of  the 
carbon  atom." 

Now,  if  the  carbon  atom  were  symmetrical,  and 
carbon  existed  only  as  diamond,  we  would  freeze 
to  death  in  winter.     So  with  our  food  stuff.     If 


78  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

the  carbon  atom  should  suddenly  become  symmet- 
rical, existing  only  in  its  left-hand  isomer  while  our 
digestive  ferments  attack  only  the  right-hand  iso- 
mer, or  vice  versa,  we  would  likewise  starve  to 
death.  With  warehouses  full  of  levoalbumins, 
levocarbohydrates,  famine  would  still  stalk  the 
land,  because  our  digestive  ferments  could  no 
more  change  them  into  assimilable  substance  than 
they  now  can  the  granite  of  the  mountains. 

Further,  and  of  transcending  importance  to  life, 
— for  without  the  fact  there  would  be  no  life, — 
this  very  powerlessness  of  our  digestive  ferments 
to  act  upon  the  levoalbumins  of  the  human  body 
is  perhaps  the  basal  reason  why  the  human  stomach 
does  not  digest  its  own  walls.  Otherwise,  like  the 
anaconda  engaged  in  swallowing  his  own  tail,  at 
the  conclusion  of  each  complete  digestive  act  the 
individual  would  disappear  in  a  cloud  of  his  own 
dust  and  vapor. 

Isomeric  integrity  may  be  the  life  principle;  it 
is  certainly  the  life  principle  which  prevents  self- 
digestion,  as  any  stomach  in  condition  would  digest 
another  stomach  if  put  therein, — as  we  eat  tripe, 
for  example.  In  fact,  this  is  Herbert  Spencer's 
theory  of  nerve  force:  that  "in  nervous  action  the 
disturbance  transmitted  is  a  wave  of  isomeric 
change."  In  other  words,  our  molecules  vibrate 
from  right  to  left,  or  the  reverse,  to  produce  nerve 
action.  Should  they  stay  wrongly  right,  or  wrong- 
ly left,  or  stop  altogether,  it  is  not  hard  to  presume 
disaster. 

To  assail  isomeric  integrity,  therefore,  may  be  to 
entail  sectional  death;  and  cancer  undoubtedly  is 
this. 

The  importance  of  the  ferments  of  the  body, — 
called  here  digestive,   and   including  the  opsonins 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        79 

of  the  blood, — is  becoming  daily  clearer  to  the  pro- 
fession. They  are  the  elements  of  assimilation, 
the  agents  of  protection.  Yet  daily  we  have  to  ex- 
plain to  the  laity  that,  when  the  secretions  are 
locked  up  by  fever, — when  the  ferments  are  not  be- 
ing secreted, — putting  food  requiring  digestion  in- 
to the  alimentary  canal  is  just  like  hiding  meat 
particles  between  the  teeth.  There  being  no  fer- 
ments to  prepare  it  for  assimilation,  it  carries  with 
itself  and  gathers  from  about  it,  elements  for  its 
own  decay.  It  is  a  toxin  instead  of  a  nutrition. 
Plus  secretion  it  is  friend;  minus  secretion,  it  is 
foe  and  poison. 

But  recently  even  further  importance  has  been 
shown  in  the  ferments.  The  opsonins  in  the  blood 
are  still  acquaintances  almost  too  new  for  men  out- 
side of  laboratories  to  discuss.  Yet  we  are  suffi- 
ciently established  in  our  knowledge  to  say  that 
certain  ferments  in  the  blood  make  the  germ  pal- 
atable to  the  phagocyte,  thereby  assisting  these  lat- 
ter to  digest  specific  infections  in  the  blood.  We 
can  talk  about  the  opsonic  index  in  furunculosis,  in 
tuberculosis,  in  syphilis;  we  can  almost  definitely 
state  that  for  each  infection  an  opsonin  ferment 
exists  in  the  blood,  which  when  in  condition  pro- 
tects the  organism  by  making  that  specific  germ  pal- 
atable to  the  blood  scavengers — thereby  assisting  in 
the  destruction  of  the  infection.  We  even  pretend 
to  say  that  when  the  opsonic  index  for  tuberculosis 
is  below  normal  the  patient  has  tuberculosis,  even 
though  no  bacilus  may  yet  be  found.  We  are  even 
injecting  our  products  into  the  blood  to  irritate  or 
stimulate  the  opsonins  for  the  specific  malady  we 
wish  to  conquer. 

I  am  able  at  this  point  to  report  a  perfectly  well 
authenticated   opsonin   cure   of   malignant   tertiary 


80  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

syphilis  of  the  most  extreme  type.  A  miner,  af- 
flicted with  ignored  syphilis,  untreated  until  its  ma- 
lignancy crippled  him,  was  stricken  with  smallpox. 
His  employer,  one  of  my  own  patients,  himself 
having  had  smallpox,  charitably  nursed  this  double 
leper  through  the  scourge.  Recovery  from  small- 
pox left  him  permanently  cured  of  his  tertiary  syph- 
ilis. The  explanation  then  was  that  the  smallpox 
germ  had  killed  the  great  pox  germ.  The  explana- 
tion is  now  simpler.  The  stimulation  of  the  op- 
sonins by  the  acute  infection  brought  a  collateral 
stimulation  of  the  opsonins  of  syphilis,  and  this 
ferment  caused  the  cure  of  the  man  of  a  disease  in- 
curable in  him  at  that  time  by  drugs.  Whether 
this  was  an  accidental  collateral  stimulation  of  op- 
sonins, or  a  direct  stimulation,  we  do  not  know.  But 
suppose  we  had  always  available  a  less  objection- 
able but  equally  swift  and  efficient  method,  would 
not  humanity  greatly  profit? 

Please,  therefore,  let  us  revivify  in  our  con- 
sciousness the  absolute  necessity  of  the  ferments  in 
making  food  really  food  to  us, — selecting  our  bread 
from  stone  for  us  by  practically  the  same  process 
that  Pasteur  used  in  his  laboratory  years  ago. 

With  sure  selective  instinct,  keener  than  the  scent 
of  the  bloodhound,  as  imperious  as  the  call  of  an 
acid  for  its  base,  these  our  agents  of  assimilation 
and  protection  stand  at  the  portal  of  our  being,  and 
decide :  this  is  right  deflecting,  this  is  left  deflecting ; 
this  is  bread,  this  is  stone — saying  to  one,  "Go  ye 
into  tissue" ;  and  to  the  other,  "Get  you  hence !" 

Let  us  also  make  vivid  to  ourselves  this  concep- 
tion of  the  protective  and  curative  powers  con- 
tained in  these  newly-discovered  ferments  in  our 
blood.  All  this  is  in  vital  relation  with  the  cancer 
problem. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        81 

In  a  paper  read  before  the  New  York  Obstetri- 
cal Society  in  1903,  the  present  writer  said:  "Wo- 
men have  lacerations,  retained  secundines,  ectopics, 
fibroids,  and  cancers.  And  we  operate  on  them 
brilliantly,  with  this  or  that  technique,  on  whose 
minor  details  we  spend  much  time  in  discussion. 
But  in  all  these  things — /  am  not  sure  that  I  will 
except  even  the  malignant  troubles — we  get  behind 
the  outward  symptom  and  arrive  at  first  causes 
when  we  'get  them  together'  in  the  tubular  system, 
as  we  clinch  our  fist,  or  contract  our  body  when 
expecting  a  blow.  We  thus  symbolize  the  great 
passion  of  the  universe — the  movement  from  cir- 
cumference to  center — 'the  love  of  a  ton  of  lead 
for  the  center  of  the  earth.'  " 

This  reference  to  the  malignant  troubles  was 
more  than  literary  fervor.  I  had  long  pondered 
over  the  fact  that  cancer  was  locally  but  an  ex- 
aggeration of  normal  cell  tissue,  as  seen  by  the 
microscope.  As  the  isomers  may  be  defined  as  "the 
difference  between  the  same  thing,"  so  cancer  may 
be  called  an  isomer  of  normal  tissue. 

Then,  certain  distinctly  noted  antecedents  of 
cancer  had.  forced  themselves  upon  my  attention 
in  my  opening  professional  days,  when  abundant 
clinical  material  was  at  hand.  In  most  of  the  can- 
cers I  saw,  the  appearance  of  the  patient  suggested 
the  diagnosis.  Is  this  not  a  common  experience 
with  others?  The  local  examination  usually  only 
confirms  what  we  knew  before  we  make  it.  When, 
then,  did  the  pallor,  the  significant  loss  of  weight, 
the  distinctive  physiognomy — the  cancer  family  re- 
semblance—begin with  relation  to  the  malignancy? 
This  was  my  first  self-questioning. 

The  diminution,  or  absence  of  the  free  hydro- 
chloric acid  in  the  gastric  juice  in  cancer  of  the 


82  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

stomach  was  the  next  insistent  point.  Did  this  ap- 
pear before  the  cancer?  Had  it  any  relation  to  the 
cancer  cause?  Or  was  it  the  result  of  malignancy, 
and  why? 

What  caused  the  marked  increase  in  saliva  no- 
ticeable in  cancer  patients?  The  saliva  has  its  fer- 
ment. Was  this  increase  simply  more  water 
poured  out  in  the  struggle  of  the  organism  to  bring 
up  its  supply  of  ptyalin? — just  as  we  have  more 
urine  in  advanced  Bright's,  in  the  effort  of  the  or- 
ganism to  get  out  in  this  way  the  diminishing  pro- 
portion of  solid  constituents.  Or  was  it  an  actual 
increase  in  ferment  production  in  the  saliva?  And 
did  it  precede  cancer;  or  did  cancer  precede  it? 

What,  too,  had  the  thryoid  gland  to  do  with  it? 
Why  was  the  thyroid  altered  in  cancer,  and  did  the 
change  precede  the  malignancy  or  come  with  it? 
We  all  know  what  subtle  influence  the  thyroid 
gland,  when  given  by  mouth,  has  on  the  organism 
— how  obesity  melts  away  and  the  individual  disap- 
pears fractionally  from  the  landscape.  Perhaps, 
like  the  fleeing  obesity,  it  is  the  malignancy  that  is 
kept  on  the  run  by  a  vigilant  thyroid  in  healthy  in- 
dividuals. Perhaps,  in  whole  or  in  part,  it  is  the 
slowly  changing  thyroid  which  allows  the  installa- 
tion of  the  malignancy  in  the  others  :  who  knows  ? 

Has  this  change  in  the  thyroid  any  connection 
with  the  significant  loss  of  weight?  If  we  can  ac- 
complish this  result  with  thyroid  taken  from  an 
animal  and  administered  by  mouth,  could  not  the 
thyroid  within  the  individual  by  perversion  cause 
this  undue  reduction  in  weight?  If  we  saw  in  a 
patient  with  suspected  malignancy  a  slowly  gaining 
weight  would  we  not  give  it  a  second  consideration? 

Graves'  disease  with  its  glandular — and  hence 
ferment — relations,  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        83 

a  preparatory  stage  of  cancer — the  cure  either 
averting  the  cancer,  or  the  severity  of  the  prepara- 
tory stage  killing  the  patient  before  the  culmina- 
tion is  reached. 

Just  as  the  spleen  is  charged  with  certain  ob- 
scure relations  to  pernicious  anemia  and  leucocy- 
themia — as  grave  as  cancer — so  may  the  spleen, 
pancreas,  as  well  as  the  ductless  and  intestinal 
glands,  be  said  to  bear  an  equal  relation  to  the  ma- 
lignancy of  cancer. 

Indeed,  noting  the  frequency  of  sarcomatous 
growths  in  the  bone  marrow  in  pernicious  anemia, 
who  can  say  whether  a  given  case  may  not  have 
been  first  a  bone-marrow  cancer,  or  even  a  blood- 
cell  cancer  before  it  becan  e  pernicious  anemia  ? 
If  this  is  not  the  order,  the  reverse  order  is  equal- 
ly convincing.  For  if  pernicious  anemia  prepared 
for  cancer,  this  proves  a  step  in  the  march  toward 
cancer — for  the  arrest  of  which  there  is  certainly 
hope. 

I  have  elsewhere  cited  a  significant  seeming  re- 
lation between  ferment  secretion  and  another  dis- 
ease,— presenting  an  analogy  with  the  present  dis- 
cussion. If  adrenalin  released  into  the  blood  causes 
the  arterial  tension  observable  long  before  the  en- 
suing Bright's  disease  is  shown  in  the  urine,  may 
there  not  be  a  relation  between  this  release  of  ad- 
renalin and  the  suppressing  of  the  selective  action 
of  the  ovaries,  as  seen  in  patients  after  double 
ovariotomy?  Testicular  inactivity,  in  presenil- 
ity  of  the  other  sex,  has  also  seemed  to  show  the 
same  relation  to  arterial  tension  long  before  urinal- 
ysis shows  a  reason  in  the  kidney. 

Let  us,  therefore,  not  lose  the  vivid  realization 
that  all  these  glandular  activities  have  to  do  with 
the  ferments  upon  whose  integrity  depends  our  life. 


84  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

It  is  a  sane  hope  that  such  glands,  showing  incip- 
ient failure,  can  be  restored  to  full  integrity. 

That  we  do  know  a  force  that  will  cure  some 
cancers  and  cause  some  cancers  I  believe  will  be 
denied  by 'no  man  in  the  profession.  This  is  one 
thing  known.  A  second  thing  known  is  the  action 
of  this  force  upon  the  ferments.  We  have  thus  two 
known  links  in  the  chain. 

With  the  mighty  uplifting  of  the  veil  during  the 
last  decade  few  more  important  hidden  things  have 
been  revealed  than  ^r-ray  and  radium.  The  exact  re- 
lation of  these  two  rays  to  each  other,  to  the  sun, 
and  to  polarized  light,  we  do  not  know.  May  we 
call  these  occult  powers  of  light,  cosmic,  telluric, 
or  radial?  This  much  at  least  we  know:  the  sun, 
the  .r-ray,  and  the  radium  ray — this  occult  radical 
force — both  cure  and  cause  diseases,  and  each  acts 
significantly  upon  the  ferments. 

The  solar  action  upon  fermentation  is  embodied 
in  the  proverbs  of  all  the  languages :  "Where  the 
sun  comes  the  doctor  shuns ;  mold  is  found  on 
the  shady  side,  etc."  But  this,  like  many  of  our 
other  half-truth  complacencies,  will  need  readjust- 
ment. 

Briefly,  this  "radial"  force  can  cause  disease: 
Blonds  can  not  live  in  the  tropics ;  they  lack  a  cur- 
tain of  pigment  to  shield  their  blood  cells.  Qui- 
nine has  been  found  to  have  opalescent  qualities 
which  rob  the  Plasmodium  of  light  required  for  its 
existence.  Hence,  this  quinine-bestowed  curtain  to 
the  blood  cell  containing  the  Plasmodium,  explains 
backwards  and  forwards  why  quinine  is  good 
and  sunlight  bad  for  malaria.  (Remembering  what 
has  already  been  said  about  pernicious  anemia,  why 
may  not  this  anemia  with  its  blood  cells  uncurtained 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        85 

by  hemoglobin  allow  too  great  a  radial  action 
from  the  sun  upon  the  protective  epsonic  ferments, 
and  if  only  by  their  destruction  and  no  more  direct 
action,  aid  in  the  mysterious  change  in  isomeric 
quality?)  Recall  the  burns  caused  by  the  x-ray; 
the  inhibiting  action  on  the  procreative  glands,  etc. 
In  the  Annals  of  Surgery,  November,  1907,  is  a 
thorough  study  of  the  increasing  list  of  ;r-ray  car- 
cinomata.  See  also  Osier's  "Modern  Medicine," 
Vol.  I,  pages  63  and  64,  for  data  regarding  gan- 
grene and  cancer  from  ^r-rays,  as  well  as  injuries 
following  exposure  to  radium. 

With  equal  brevity  let  us  look  at  the  side  of 
cures  from  the  occult  radial  forces.  There  are  ap- 
parently more  cures  than  hurts. 

In  the  Berliner  Minis che  Wochenschrift,  April  1, 
1907,  Widmer  reports  the  cure  of  a  carcinoma  by 
repeated  exposure  to  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun. 
Radiotherapy  has  been  employed  with  success  in 
pernicious  anemia  by  Grego  of  Geneva.  (I  ask 
again,  how  can  we  know  it  was  not  marrow  can- 
cer?) The  ^r-rays  have  also  been  used  with  suc- 
cess in  similar  conditions  by  Beaujard  of  Paris. 
(Semaine  Medical,  Nov.  17,  1907,  page  202.) 

Dr.  Robert  Abbe,  in  the  Medical  Record  of  Oc- 
tober 12,  1907,  presents  an  extended  paper  on  the 
subject  of  cures  by  radium  and  its  influence  on  an- 
imal and  bacterial  life.  For  example,  dry  seed  ex- 
posed to  radium  has  its  growth  retarded  after 
planting,  according  to  the  time  of  exposure.  In 
animal  life,  meal  worms  are  repressed  in  their  life 
history  cycle  by  radium,  while  their  brothers  and 
sisters,  "unradiumized,"  complete  several  cycles  as 
beetles,  eggs,  meal  worms,  etc.  So  likewise  is  bac- 
terial life  checked  or  destroyed. 

This  radial  action — of  sun  and  ray  and  ray — is 


86  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

probably  in  the  direction  of  a  cure  when  it  acts  re- 
pressively  on  the  noxious  bacterial  (or  ferment) 
life.  It  is  probably  acting  in  the  direction  of  hurt 
when  it  destroys  our  assimilative  and  protective 
ferments. 

Our  conception  does  not  require  that  it  act  di- 
rectly as  a  changer  of  isomeric  quality — though  it 
probably  can  do  this  as  easily  as  the  sun  draws 
pigment — for  it  is  easy  to  see  how  it  reaches  the 
same  result  indirectly  when  it  destroys  the  ferments 
which  would  otherwise  digest  the  noxious  isomer. 

Proven  beyond  all  cavil,  however,  is  the  existence 
of  this  occult  force  which  brings  both  hurt  and 
cure.  We  know  that  it  acts  on  the  ferments;  we 
know  that  ferments  destroy  one  isomer  and  allow 
the  other  to  remain  untouched;  we  know  then  that 
it  thus  acts  at  least  once  removed  on  isomers. 

We  know  what  the  force  does,  pro  and  con ;  but 
we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  bridling  it  so  that  it 
will  always  act  pro  and  never  con.  This  may  be 
our  next  success  when  we  have  learned  its  rela- 
tion to  isomeric  integrity. 

But  that  one  known  force  can  thus  act  pro  and 
con  presupposes  that  other  forces  may  so  act. 

This  march  of  antecedents,  in  cancer  has  formed 
an  intensely  interesting  chapter  in  my  line  of  special 
study.  For  fifteen  years  I  have  been  cautiously 
insinuating  under  the  notice  of  the  profession  dis- 
cussion of  many  minor  and  detached  matters,  that 
the  thus  printed  word  might  be  used  in  presenting 
an  entirely  new  system  of  approach  in  medicine. 
This  I  have  called  "Synthetical  Medicine,"  and  have 
published  in  the  Medical  Record,  April  7,  1906. 

Synthetical  Medicine,  the  science  of  the  unclassi- 
fied, "assumes  to  recognize  and  postpone  that  even- 
tual trouble,  be  it  in  heart,  liver,  kidney,  or  blood- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        87 

vessel,  which  a  grouping  and  study  of  present  con- 
ditions will  often  show  years  before  it  takes  place 
in  its  text-book  form;  ...  it  asks,  what  trouble 
in  addition  to  the  text-book  classification,  has  the 
patient  ?" 

The  profession  has  not  understood  this,  nor  con- 
sidered it  very  important,  nor  shown  much  interest ; 
but  I  cite  it  here  to  show  the  formed  mental  habit 
which  brought  this  march  of  antecedents  in  can- 
cer under  my  notice. 

The  extent  of  my  debt  in  this  special  subject  of 
cancer  to  the  suggestions  of  Beard  and  Bell  is  ap- 
parent. But  the  conception  herein  differs  widely 
from  that  held  by  either. 

If  the  asymmetry  of  the  carbon  atom  causes  one 
form  of  the  same  thing  to  assume  a  right  rotary 
quality  and  another  form  a  left  rotary  to  the  polar- 
ized light;  if  one  of  these  quailties  is  assimilable 
under  our  digestive  ferments,  is  acted  upon  by  our 
protective  ferments,  and  the  other  is  not;  if  the 
cell  proliferation  of  cancer  is  simply  an  exaggera- 
tion of  normal  cell  proliferation, — either  of  oppo- 
site isomeric  quality,  hence  insusceptible  to  our 
ferments ;  or  of  the  same  quality,  and  undisciplined 
by  our  ferments  because  impaired — then,  whatever 
deflects  our  protoplasm  from  one  isomer  to  its  op- 
posite, or  impairs  the  quality  of  our  protective  fer- 
ments, may  be  said  to  be  the  cause  of  cancer,  long 
before  its  local  manifestation.  And  whatever  de- 
flects this  malign  isomer  to  its  benign  opposite,  or 
whatever  restores  the  integrity  of  the  failing  fer- 
ments,— long  before  the  local  manifestation — may 
be  said  to  be  the  cure  for  cancer. 

If  the  radial  forces — the  sun  and  ray  and  ray- 
even  if  not  acting  directly  upon  the  carbon  atom  in 
our  protoplasm,  act  repressively  on  our  protective 


88  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

ferments,  thereby  allowing  the  wrong  isomer  to 
flourish  into  exaggerated  cell  life  like  the  rank 
foliage  of  the  tropics,  then  the  "radial"  forces  may 
be  said  to  cause  such  a  cancer. 

If  pigment  absorption,  hair  graying,  hemoglobin 
disappearance,  allow  the  radial  forces  to  attack  the 
cancer  opsonin  among  the  thus  uncurtained  blood- 
cells,  then  here  is  a  more  remote  cause  of  cancer. 

Conversely,  if  we  can  shield  our  protective  fer- 
ments from  the  destructive  radial  forces,  and  at 
the  same  time  expose  our  noxious  elements  there- 
to, the  radial  forces  may  be  said  to  cure  such  can- 
cers. 

If  a  perverted  thyroid,  withdrawn  from  its  mys- 
terious guardianship  against  wrong  isomers,  leaves 
them  to  flourish  like  weeds  in  the  absence  of  the 
gardener,  while  the  recreant  gland  disrobes  the 
skeleton  of  flesh,  then  perverted  thyroid  is  another 
cause  of  cancer.  And  conversely,  the  restoration 
of  such  a  thyroid  is  the  cure  for  cancer  so  produced. 

But  whether  one  item,  or  all,  whatever  restores 
glandular  activity,  replaces  the  disturbed  ferment 
protection,  restores  the  isomeric  integrity, — that 
item,  or  aggregate  of  items,  thereby  cures  the  can- 
cer. 

The  incipient  cause,  the  study  of  the  march  of 
antecedents,  the  application  of  the  cures,  all  lie  in 
the  domain  of  Synthetical  Medicine. 

The  use  of  trypsin  for  the  cure  of  developed 
cancer  as  Beard  says,  "fits  like  a  key  in  the  lock" 
with  the  theory  outlined  above.  Beard's  idea  is  not 
its  local  application,  but  the  overwhelming  the  sys- 
tem with  it  hypodermically.  Many  careful  men  are 
trying  this  and  I  believe  a  fair  view  of  their  conclu- 
sion is  that  trypsin  does  not  cure  the  cancer. 

That  trypsin  may  fail  even  in  most  developed 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        89 

cases  would  not  nullify  the  importance  of  its  testi- 
mony if  it  succeeds  in  any.  Fof  if  it  has  any  power 
over  the  local  manifestation  of  cancer — aside  from 
a  certain  digestive  action  such  as  pineapple  juice 
might  have  on  thickened  mucus  in  the  throat, — it 
proves  that  the  excessive  cell  proliferation  by  be- 
ing susceptible  to  the  ferment,  contains  a  carbon 
atom  of  that  isomeric  quality  acted  upon  by  that 
ferment — and  not  of  the  opposite  quality.  This  is 
as  sure  a  test  as  our  test  for  albumin  and  sugar. 
Here,  then,  is  light;  here  is  differentiation;  here  is 
invitation  along  a  new  line  of  research. 

For  while  medical  humanity  may  prefer  a  sign, 
a  specific,  a  single  "distinctly  defined"  process  of 
application,  we  must  not  hope  always  to  have  given 
us  such  a  definite  entity  as  we  received  in  the  anti- 
toxin for  diphtheria,  for  example.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  apply  a  juice  to  a 
spot,  merely,  and  cure  a  cancer.  Nor  can  we  hope 
to  secure  a  single  injectable  curative  juice.  How 
simple  this  would  be  for  the  man  who  had  the 
juice!  The  very  theory  of  the  complex  causes  of 
cancer  is  against  this  hope.  But  if  we  can  increase 
the  opsonin  ferments,  stimulate  a  phagocytosis,  and 
thus  make  a  man's  blood  corpuscles  eat  up  his  own 
cancer;  or  if  we  can  stop  the  change  in  the  thy- 
roid, the  alteration  of  the  saliva,  the  gastric,  pan- 
creatic, and  intestinal  juices,  the  ominous  loss  of 
weight,  the  ghastly  robbery  of  the  hemoglobin  cur- 
tain for  the  cells  of  the  blood,  there  may  still  be  ad- 
ditional help  from  the  injectable  juice,  or  from  the 
local  juice  at  the  local  spot.  But  the  source  is  more 
important  than  the  local  manifestation. 

This  conception  of  making  an  element  in  a  man's 
blood  eat  up  his  own  disease,  though  hardly  born 
to  the  medical  profession,  probably  points  the  line 


90  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

of  our  future  march.  But  to  use  this  new  possi- 
bility we  must  see  things  earlier  than  we  are  wont 
under  our  present  methods,  which  teach  us  to  see 
only  the  accomplished  fact  and  blind  us  to  the 
widely  scattered  preliminary  stages.  It  is  only 
when  these  are  finally  focused  that  they  realize 
our  textbook  descriptions. 

For  example,  though  all  medical  men  may  not 
agree,  I  firmly  believe  that  the  more  skilful  among 
us  can  foretell  the  advent  of  tuberculosis  long  be- 
fore the  bacillus  gives  any  sign  of  its  presence.  A 
rougher,  cruder  diagnostician,  who  must  have  his 
hectic,  cavity,  and  bacillus,  before  he  can  see  the 
tuberculosis,  naturally  is  limited  to  short  range  pro- 
cedure. He  is  more  of  a  prognostician  than  a  di- 
agnostician. He  can  foresee  death  more  clearly 
than  cure.  His  resources  are  climate,  overfeeding, 
and  creosote, — frequently  helpful;  but  far  removed 
from  what  might  have  been  done  had  the  earlier 
picture  been  seen — the  falling  opsonic  index,  the 
wasting  muscles,  the  depleted  vitality,  the  unfair 
nutritive  division, — the  bulk  of  the  nutrition  going 
to  the  brightly  burning  nervous  system,  with  the 
lower  forms  of  tissue  slowly  starving,  as  the  sap- 
pers and  miners  prepare  the  soil  for  the  seed.  We 
should  infer  the  harvest  when  we  see  the  plow. 
This  is  Synthetical  Medicine. 

If  cancer,  therefore,  is  the  climax  of  a  synthet- 
ical progression,  finally  showing  itself  locally,  we 
may  be  able  to  avert  it  when  so  understood  and  so 
attacked.     Perhaps  this  has  been  done. 

I  would  not  dare  report  seriously  to  this  Acad- 
emy what  I  honestly  hal f -believe :  that  these  begin- 
ning changes  have  been  seen  and  have  been  pur- 
posefully attacked,  and  the  cancer  has  been  averted. 
But  this  is  a  fair  report:  Patients  with  all  the  pre- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        91 

liminaries  have  been  restored  to  health.  But  of 
course  there  is  no  proof  that  cancer  (uterine,  is 
the  special  reference),  would  ever  have  culminated. 

But  this,  too,  is  a  fair  report:  If  any  man  here- 
after sees  a  patient  with  these  detailed  preliminar- 
ies of  cancer  state — long  before  the  patient  has  the 
disease  classified  in  our  text-books — and  does  not 
purposefully  wipe  offending  item  after  item  off  the 
slate,  such  a  man  is  not  protecting  his  patient  as  he 
should. 

To  accentuate  the  relation  of  the  general  condi- 
tion to  cancer,  let  me  continue  from  the  quotation 
begun  at  the  head  of  this  paper: 

"There  are  five  distinct  groups  of  malignant  tu- 
mors, and  Mr.  Sutton  draws  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  dealing  with  these  tumors,  the  position  is 
such  that  we  are  unable  to  point  to  any  absolute 
histological  indication  of  malignancy,  and  that  clin- 
ical and  histological  characters  must  be  considered 
together.  Microscopic  examination,  even  when 
conducted  by  the  most  expert  microscopist,  can  not 
determine  with  precise  certainty  whether  a  tumor  is 
malignant  or  not.  'The  true  character  of  such  tu- 
mors can  only  be  determined  by  careful  observa- 
tion of  the  patient.'  " 

Dr.  Robert  A.  Murray,  before  the  New  York 
Obstetrical  Society,  November  12,  1907,  quoted  au- 
thorities on  this  same  fact.  Many  cases  of  fibroids 
show  precisely  the  same  microscopy  as  cancer. 

Prof.  James  Ewing,  at  the  last  meeting  of  this 
section,  February  6,  1908,  quoted  authorities  who 
characterize  chorioepithelioma  as  varying  so  much 
in  significance  that  at  one  extremity  it  is  criminal 
to  operate  because  it  is  so  benign  as  to  recover 
sometimes  spontaneously;  while  at  the  other  ex- 
tremity it  is  criminal  to  operate  because  it  is  so 


92  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

malignant  that  the  end  is  hastened  by  operation. 

These  facts  are  vitally  significant.  The  same  mi- 
croscopic slide,  therefore,  which,  plus  history  of  un- 
impaired general  condition,  would  bring  a  benign 
verdict,  becomes  cancer  when  pinned  to  the  his- 
tory of  cachexia.  The  cachexia  is  the  cancer, 
therefore.  For  a  broken  down  and  infected  fibroid, 
like  an  infected  leg,  is  only  a  surgical  problem  of 
infection  and  suppuration,  or  of  gangrene  from 
compression — it  has  no  relation  to  the  general 
problem  of  impaired  ferments,  isomeric  integrity, 
plus  a  local  malignancy. 

"An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound  of 
cure,"  and  "keeping  in  good  condition,"  as  a  basis 
of  this  theory  is  as  fatuous  a  conception  as  would 
be  futile  the  efforts  of  the  man  lazily  adopting  it. 
On  the  contrary,  it  implies  direct,  purposeful  attack 
upon  a  start  toward  a  definite  and  fatal  end;  it  is 
by  no  means  a  good-natured,  tolerant,  passive  state 
of  ordinary  hygiene. 

Human  limitation  implies  that  we  rarely  see  or 
hear  the  obscure  upon  which  we  have  not  had  our 
attention  concentrated.  Our  experience,  as  em- 
bodied in  the  answers  to  the  following  questions, 
may  therefore  be  no  experience  at  all,  unless  we 
have  specially  directed  our  attention  to  the  points 
involved.  I  respectfully  solicit  the  wisdom  of  the 
profession  upon  the  following  points : 

i.  Who  have  seen  cancer  develop  in  patients  that 
have  been  under  observation,  say  a  year  before  the 
cancer  became  unmistakable? 

2.  What  has  been  the  relation  observed  between 
the  cancer  and  the  cachexia?  What  observations 
have  been  made  of  the  various  secretions?  When 
did  the  glands  begin  to  fail;  when  did  the  weight 
loss  beein?  etc. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        93 

3.  This  question  is  preceded  with  an  avowal  that 
no  desire  exists  to  discredit  surgical  methods.  Re- 
stricting the  question  to  uterine  cases,  what  is  the 
honest  conviction  of  those  with  the  experience  re- 
garding the  quick  and  possibly  more  virulent  return 
of  the  malignancy  after  operation?  (Perhaps  those 
who  operate  most  frequently  are  the  least  qualified 
to  sayhow  long  life  might  have  lasted  without  an 
operation,  as  they  do  not  know  this  side.  The  ex- 
cellence of  their  equipment  in  one  direction  is  the 
measure  of  their  limitation  in  the  other.)  Yet  the 
strictest  estimate  is  necessary  on  this  point,  for  if 
there  is  anything  in  the  new  trend,  surgery  may 
be  the  worst  thing  to  do  to  a  cancer.  Like  the  po- 
tato which  would  grow  but  one  plant  as  a  whole, 
subdivided  grows  a  plant  for  each  eye — like  cell 
segmentation,  like  sowing  parts  each  capable  of  re- 
producing the  whole — cutting  may  be  simply  spread- 
ing elsewhere  the  local  manifestation. 

Quite  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  be  true  that  the 
only  nonrecurrences  of  cancer  after  surgery  are 
found  with  those  who  were  operated  upon  before 
the  advent  of  cachexia,  then  the  new  trend  all  the 
more  imperatively  demands  even  prompter  surgery. 

Starting,  therefore,  with  the  frank  admission  that 
nothing  as  yet  has  been  accomplished;  still  clinging 
to  our  best  procedure  of  surgery,  is  there  not  rea- 
son to  consider  this  sequence  with  scientific  open- 
ness of  mind? 

A  certain  known,  but  not  understood,  "radial" 
force  can  act  upon  products  containing  the  asym- 
metrical carbon  atom  to  change  their  isomeric  qual- 
ity as  shown  by  polarized  light.  That  one  force 
can  so  act  presupposes  that  other  forces  may  so  act. 

The  natural  ferments  contained  in  the  secretions 
of  the  body,  digestive  and  protective,  "digest"  one 


94  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

series  of  isomers  and  leave  the  opposite  series  un- 
touched. Therefore,  the  action  of  this  occult 
"radial"  force — this  assailing  of  isomeric  integrity, 
— can  change  protoplasm  from  digestibility  to  in- 
digestibility  to  the  natural  ferments,  and  vice  versa. 

The  local  cancer  product  consists  presumably  of 
changed  isomers  allowed  to  grow  instead  of  being 
"digested."  This  is  made  all  the  more  probable  by 
the  disappearance  of  the  opsonic  ferments  in  the 
blood  in  all  such  diseases  as  have  been  subjected  to 
controlled  observation;  and,  specifically  in  cancer, 
by  the  gradual  suppression  of  the  enumerated  fer- 
ments. These  ferments — presumably — begin  to 
modify  long  before  transition  from  the  preliminary 
to  the  final  state  called  cancer.  Therefore,  even  if 
there  be  no  change  in  isomeric  quality,  the  secre- 
tion suppression  would  explain  the  growth  of  the 
cancer  weed  cells  that  effective  ferments  would 
have  removed. 

If  there  be  no  flaw  in  these  significances,  the 
cure  for  cancer  as  well  as  its  prevention,  lies  in  the 
realm  of  Synthetical  Medicine,  to  which  the  atten- 
tion of  the  profession  is  again  respectfully  directed. 

If  the  foregoing  seems  as  radical  as  some  of  my 
earlier  papers,  I  beg  that  you  will  pardon  this  al- 
most unpardonable  reminder: 

Ten  years  ago  before  this  Academy,  alone  in  the 
profession  so  far  as  I  know,  I  had  the  temerity  to 
say  regarding  overzealous  abdominal  operations  al- 
most precisely  what  Dr.  Boldt,  at  our  last  section 
meeting,  outlined  to  you  in  reviewing  "the  recent 
advances  in  gynecology." 

The  adverse  reception  first  given  this  presenta- 
tion, and  the  cordial  welcome  greeting  it  ten  years 
later,  are  alike  matters  of  record, — both  gratifying 
and  instructive. 


[Reprinted  from  the  American  Journal  of  Obstetrics  and  Diseases  of 
Women  and  Children,  Vol.  LXII,  No.  2,  1910.] 


WHAT  MAY  WE  NOW  TELL  THE  COMMUN- 
ITY REGARDING  CANCER?* 

BY 
EUGENE  COLEMAN  SAVIDGE,  M.  D., 

New  York. 

It  is  estimated  that  80,000  unsuspecting  people 
in  this  country,  apparently  well  at  this  moment, 
will  be  afflicted  with  incurable  cancer  in  six 
months.     These  are  Crile's  figures. 

It  would  be  important  to  these  to  establish  that 
there  is  a  recognizable  pre-cancer  stage. 

Has  cancer  an  antecedent  stage  in  which  it  may 
be  prevented  or  cured?  What  special  conditions 
favor  the  development  of  cancer?  These  are  vital 
questions. 

In  "The  Cancer  Problem,"  published  two  years 
ago  {Medical  Record,  May  2,  1908),  the  present 
writer  gave  reasons  for  belief  in  a  pre-cancer 
stage;  pointed  to  the  relation  between  glandular 
activity,  ferment  integrity,  and  cancer;  dwelt  upon 
the  possibility  of  making  the  organism  cure  its 
own  cancer;  and  announced  a  half -conviction  that 
this  had  been  done. 

Exactly    one    month  later  Crile  published  hi9 

*  Read  before  the  New  York  Obstetrical  Society,  April  12, 1910. 


96  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

memorable  paper,  under  identical  title,  likewise 
announcing  belief  in  a  pre-cancer  stage,  and  giving 
the  result  of  his  study  of  the  blood  of  cancer 
subjects. 

September  4,  1909,  Dr.  E.  F.  Bashford,  Director 
of  the  Imperial  Cancer  Research  Fund,  published 
his  report  of  that  body. 

And  February  26,  1910,  Hodenpyle  published 
his  intensely  significant  account  of  a  patient  who 
did  cure  herself  of  her  inoperable  and  apparently 
fatal  cancers,  and  whose  ascitic  fluid  has  had  an 
arresting  or  modifying  effect  on  other  cancers,  now 
being  studied. 

Therefore  there  may,  indeed,  be  an  antecedent 
stage  to  cancer.  Cancer  may  depend  vitally  upon 
condition.  Cancer  may  have  been  cured  by  the 
organism  growing  it,  in  other  cases  than  that  re- 
ported by  Hodenpyle. 

But  while  debating  the  unknown  we  can  point 
out  certain  known  avenues  of  cancer  approach, 
many  of  which  can  be  blocked. 

The  time  limit  will  permit  only  a  bare  deduction, 
and  a  quotation  to  prove  it — principally  from 
Director  Bashford's  report,  cited  above. 

The  Imperial  Cancer  Research  Fund  in  seven 
years  has  studied  200,000  mice.  It  has  sixty  differ- 
ent species  of  cancer  growing.  It  is  still  growing 
the  identical  cancers  which  have  been  transplanted 
through  four  successive  generations  of  mice.  It 
fires  the  imagination  to  see  proved  a  relatively  im- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        97 

mortal  living  entity,  nourished  by  a  great-grand- 
sire's  blood,  transplanted  and  retransplanted,  and 
still  promising  a  continuous  life.     I  quote: 

"Seven  years  ago  no  one  conceived  it  possible 
that  portions  of  the  mammalian  organism  could  be 
kept  growing  for  a  period  four  times  the  life  of  the 
whole  animal." 

Could  this  same  process  succeed  in  an  antitheti- 
cal benign  sense,  no  sound  organ — from  adrenal 
to  brain — would  ever  be  interred  with  our  acci- 
dental dead,  but  instead  transplanted  upon  the 
living  defective. 

Authority. — -Capable  men,  studying  sufficiently 
ample  material,  with  scientific  method  of  recorded 
observation  and  honest  intent  in  collating  and  re- 
porting, bring  us  as  near  final  authority  as  human 
intelligence  can  get  in  an  evolving  question.  Such 
is  the  source  of  my  quotation  for  deduction. 

IDENTITY    OF   HUMAN    CANCER   WITH  TRANSPLANTED 
CANCER    EN    MICE. 

Director  Bashford  says: 

"The  experimental  production,  at  will,  of  the 
lesions  of  carcinoma  and  sarcoma,  has  to-day  be- 
come a  mere  matter  of  laboratory  routine.  .  .  . 
With  the  lapse  of  time  the  material  accumulated 
has  made  the  demonstration  of  the  anatomical 
lesions  and  clinical  features  more  and  more  perfect, 
and  to-day  it  lacks  nothing  in  completeness." 

CANCER    IS    A   DISEASE    OF   AGE. 

"The  age  incidence  of  cancer  reveals  a  law  ap- 


98  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

plicable  to  all  vertebrates.  Statistically,  cancer  is 
a  function  of  age;  and  when  considered  biologically, 
a  function  of  senescence." 

CANCER   CANNOT  BE   INOCULATED   UPON   THE  AGED. 

The  seeming  contradiction  in  the  following  is 
very  important.  It  may  disclose  the  whole  secret 
of  the  pre-cancer  stage: 

"  Old  mice  are  less  suited  for  transplanting  than 
young.  .    .  . 

"Old  mice  cured  themselves  in  four  weeks. 
.  .  .  There  is  more  rapid  growth  in  the  human 
subject  when  developing  in  the  young. 

"  Senescence  is  not  necessary  for  cancer's  contin- 
uous growth. 

"Old  age  itself  renders  mice  absolutely  resistant 
to  the  inoculation  of  cancer. 

"The  growth  is  frequently  terminated  by  the 
immunity  which  the  tumors  induce  against  them- 
selves." 

THE   RELATION   OF  CONDITION   TO   CANCER. 

Age  brings  complete  imunity  to  inoculation. 
The  fact  is  simply  cited  here  with  reference  to 
condition  and  cancer.  The  seeming  contradiction 
will  be  treated  later. 

Age  brings  complete  immunity;  complete  im- 
munity is  a  condition;  and  how  to  get  that  con- 
dition under  control  is  the  problem  for  the  expert. 

THE    INTERMEDIATE    STAGES    OF    CONDITION. 

But  what  of  these  intermediate  stages  of  condi- 
tion when  the  battle  wages  across  the  frontier  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY        99 

immunity  and  back  again  into  susceptibility?     I 
quote  from  source  cited: 

"Propagable  tumors  inoculated  into  mice  with 
spontaneous  tumors  caused  the  spontaneous  tumors 
to  outstrip  the  inoculated  tumor." 

This  certainly  shows  the  relation  of  changed 
condition.     Again: 

"Repeated  transplantations  aided  the  process 
(in  the  new  mice)  with  yet  no  progress  taking 
place  in  the  mouse  yielding  the  mother  tumor." 

Some  soil  is  therefore  more  inviting  than  other 
soil  for  the  same  cancer.     Again: 

"  As  yet  we  have  not  got  much  beyond  denning 
that  the  cancer  cell  has  many  of  the  properties  of 
rapidly  growing  tissue,  without  containing  any- 
thing extraneous,  and  without  secreting  anything 
directly  deleterious  to  the  organism." 

The  present  writer  will  later  cite  a  distinct 
minus  quality  in  the  cancer  cell.     Continuing : 

"There  is  no  evidence  of  toxic  products  (from 
propagated  tumors)  injurious  to  the  hosts;  on  the 
contrary,  there  is  a  compensatory  enhanced  vitality 
on  their  part.  ...  In  the  end  compensation 
breaks  down,  and  finally  the  tumor  lives  at  the 
expense  of  the  host.  .  .  .  The  host  becomes  an 
assimilative  and  excretory  apparatus  for  the  tumor." 

COMPENSATORY    ENHANCED    VITALITY    IN    CANCER. 

This  observation  is  very  important.  The  very 
superficial  sense  of  well-being — like  the  exaltation 
of  the  initial  fever — is  not  only  one  of  the  phases 


100    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

of  the  pre-cancer  condition,  but  also  a  proof  that 
the  organism  is  fighting  and  checking  the  cancer 
up  to  a  certain  point. 

THE  CACHEXIA  AND  THE  CANCER. 

The  cachexia  is  the  recognizable  symbol  of  van- 
ished immunity,  abandoned  resistance,  and  the 
arrival  of  the  hopeless  malignancy.  Unfortunately 
this  is  usually  the  condition  in  which  the  surgeon 
gets  his  cancer  patient.     Continuing : 

"In  1905  we  described  the  cycle  alterations  in 
the  energy  and  growth  of  Jensen's  tumor.  Since 
then  we  have  been  able  to  confirm  these  observa- 
tions on  every  one  of  the  sixty  propagable  tumors 
growing  in  the  laboratory.  ...  In  the  human 
subject  there  are  corresponding  fluctuations  in 
the  growth  of  cancer.  In  one  part  of  the  tumor 
the  growth  is  proceeding  rapidly,  in  another  part 
slowly.  .  .  .  Further,  secondary  nodules  of  growth 
are  known  to  disappear  while  others  are  growing, 
and  occasionally  primary  growths  have  disap- 
peared." 

A   REMEDIAL   STRUGGLE    IN    EVERY    CANCER   HOST. 

Every  case  has  its  remedial  struggle.  Dr. 
Hodenpyle's  cancer  patient  had  in  her  organism 
sufficient  power  of  remedial  struggle  to  cure  her 
own  cancer.  Condition — of  unknown  quality,  but 
yet  condition — prevailed  against  cancer.  Cancer 
usually  prevails  against  condition.  The  problem 
of  the  expert  is  to  discover  the  quality  and  defect 
of  such  condition. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      101 


CANCER    CANNOT   BE    CAUGHT;    IT   MUST   BE  GROWN. 

Is  cancer  infectious  or  contagious?  Director 
Bashford  says: 

"  Cancer  is  ubiquitous,  yet  there  are  most  strik- 
ing limitations  to  its  conveyance  from  one  indi- 
vidual to  another.  Continued  growth  takes  place 
after  inoculation  into  animals  of  the  same  species 
only.  .  .  .  Inoculation  is  only  successful  by  im- 
plantation of  living  cells,  but  experiments  show 
that  this  risk  (that  is,  the  risk  of  a  surgeon  acquir- 
ing it  while  operating)  is  negligible,  if  it  exists  at 
all  in  nature." 

This  would  imply  no  danger  to  man  from  eating  a 
lower  animal  afflicted  with  cancer — as  for  example 
trout,  particularly  cancer-ridden  among  fish — but 
would  indicate  that  a  cannibal  as  host  might 
acquire  the  cancer  of  his  banquet. 

If  cancers  of  lower  animals  have  no  danger  to 
man,  we  yet  know  that  sheep  thyroid  and  hog 
pepsin  act  beneficently  in  the  human  subject.  Has 
man  only  a  susceptibility  to  their  benign  products? 
Does  nature  make  an  exception  wherein  only 
"good  health  is  catching?" 

CANCER    IS   NOT   HEREDITARY    BUT   ACQUIRED 
OR    GROWN. 

The  report  says : 

"  The  question  of  the  hereditary  transmission  of 
cancer  has  not  been  settled  either  one  way  or  the 
other  for  man.  The  short  duration  of  the  mouse's 
life  .  .  .  makes  it  the  ideal  animal  for  the  study 
of  heredity.    .    .    .     No  indication  of  any  inborn 


102    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

When  and  how  did  this  disassociation  begin? 

PROGRESSIVE,    PROPORTIONATE  ALTERATION    OF 
CELL  POISE. 

There  is  a  known  time  when  distinct  changes 
take  place  in  cell  activities,  and  especially  in  the 
internal  secretions  which — as  all  know — govern 
blood  pressure,  and  through  blood  pressure  control 
function. 

These  alterations,  beginning  about  the  time  of 
maturity — like  the  turn  of  the  leaf  in  autumn — are 
normally  proportionate  and  in  adjusted  relation. 
Flexor  and  extensor  muscles,  vasoconstrictor  and 
vasodilator  secretions,  etc.,  increase  and  atrophy 
in  like  proportion  and  at  appointed  time.  They 
are  progressively  immune  to  cancer  in  whom  these 
changes  so  proceed. 

In  the  abnormal  non-immune  few  who  get  cancer, 
these  processes  go  on  irregularly,  out  of  proper 
timing  with  respect  to  compensatory  antagonisms. 
For  example,  a  vasodilator  internal  secretion  failing 
earlier  than  normal  would  leave  behind  a  relatively 
more  forceful  vasoconstrictor  antagonism  —  and 
vice  versa — than  if  the  rhythm  and  proportion  had 
been  proper. 

Childhood,  as  a  further  example — with  its  mar- 
velous activity  of  cell  reproduction — is  yet  immune 
from  sex-cell  growth  until  the  thymus  goes.  But 
at  any  time  after  that,  until  age  bestows  immunity, 
we  may  bring  at  will  the  "flashes"  of  the  meno- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      103 

— extending  to  some  complete  immunity;  to  others 
a  (rare)  self -cure;  but  to  the  majority  of  the 
afflicted  a  rhythmic  attempt  at  self -cure,  with  final 
defeat.  It  bears  no  relation  to  kind  of  diet;  it  is 
not  hereditary;  it  is  not  contagious  or  infectious. 
Cancer  must  be  grown,  and  its  cell  is  differentiated 
according  to  the  tissue  from  which  it  arises.  From 
this  known  we  pass  to  what,  though  unsettled,  has 
sufficiently  crystallized  to  give  us  practical  aid. 

A  PROGRESSIVE  IMMUNITY  TO   CANCER   COMES    WITH 
NORMAL  AGE. 

If  the  aged  cannot  be  inoculated  at  all;  if  the 
less  aged  rapidly  cure  themselves  of  transplanted 
cancers;  and  if — as  in  the  human  subject — the 
younger  the  host  the  more  virulent  the  cancer — 
then  logic  forces  a  conclusion.  Some  change  in  the 
organism  makes  cancer  progressively  harder  to 
inoculate. 

And  yet  facts  also  show  that  cancer  is  a  disease 
of  age.     How  explain? 

The  explanation  is  found  in  the  conception  of  a 
pre-cancer  stage. 

The  minority,  non-immune,  who  acquire  spon- 
taneous cancer  in  age,  do  so  because  they  have 
become  disassociated  from  that  force  which  confers 
the  progressive  immunity  upon  the  majority.  These 
non-immune  could  also  be  inoculated  in  age — with 
the  effect  of  hastening  the  spontaneous  cancer, 
already  cited. 


10-i         THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 


disposition  playing  a  part  in  determining  either  a 
local  or  constitutional  liability  to  the  disease,  or 
even  so  much  as  an  enhanced  suitability  for  inocula- 
tion, has  been  shown.  .  .  .  Therefore  it  would 
appear  that  the  disease  ...  is  always  acquired. 
.  .  .  Other  facts  are  even  more  emphatically 
opposed  to  the  idea  (of  heredity)." 

THE  KIND  OF  DIET  BEARS  NO  RELATION  TO  CANCER. 

"  Exceptional  opportunities  are  afforded  in  India 
for  the  study  of  the  incidence  of  cancer  in  vege- 
tarians and  flesh-eaters,  since  the  diet  is  strictly 
ordained  by  the  customs  of  the  different  native 
castes.  In  India  the  disease  occurs  irrespective  of 
vegetarian  or  meat  diet,  just  as  it  occurs  in  the 
herbivorous  and  carnivorous  mammals." 

Nutritive  excess  or  deficiency  is  not  contemplated 
in  the  above  quotation. 

THE    DIFFERENTIATION    IN   THE    CANCER   CELL. 

Cancer  cells  differ  according  to  the  kind  of  tissue 
from  which  they  are  derived.     The  report  says: 

"  Cancer  cells  are  specialized.  No  single  species 
is  an  exact  duplicate  of  the  others.  They  still 
possess  characters  of  less  obvious  kind." 

Cancer  cells  are  therefore  obviously  derived  from 
many  kinds  of  tissue. 

RESUME    OF   AUTHORITATIVE    STATEMENTS. 

Mouse  cancer  is  analogous  with  human  cancer. 
Cancer  is  a  disease  of  age.  Cancer  cannot  be  in- 
oculated upon  the  aged.    Condition  is  vital  in  cancer 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      105 

pause — as  by  double  ovariotomy.  But  age  confers 
an  immunity  to  this  vasodilator  disturbance  which 
yet  may  be  said  to  be  a  disturbance  of  age.  The 
internal  secretions  which  cause  it — the  younger 
the  subject,  the  stronger  the  disturbance — have 
been  progressively,  mutually,  proportionately  ad- 
justed. To  the  remotest  individual  cell  there  is  an 
adjusted  cell  poise,  entirely  lacking  at  the  crucial 
periods — as  at  puberty;  as  at  maturity;  when  the 
boy's  unstable  voice,  the  girl's  helpless  blush,  the 
matron's  vasodilator  hot-flashes — paint  the  story 
in  broadest  relief. 

Those  in  whom  a  "ferment"  fails  too  soon,  or 
lasts  too  long,  have  therein  the  basis  of  the  pre- 
cancer stage.  There  may  be  special  danger  in  the 
belated  secretion,  outlasting  its  normal  inhibiting 
antagonists.  These  become  the  non-immune  to 
cancer,  and  may  grow  it  in  the  presence  of  a  con- 
tributing cause. 

SPECIAL  IRRITATIONS  AND   CANCER. 

Those  in  the  first  group,  immune  to  cancer,  un- 
dergo without  danger  the  identical  irritations  which 
produce  cancer  in  the  non-immune  few. 

Irritations  unquestionably  produce  cancer,  but 
only  in  the  presence  of  another  cancer  element. 
Without  the  cancer  element  they  produce  no  cancer. 
Irritations  are  therefore  only  a  half-cause  of 
cancer. 


106    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

THE    BASAL   HALF-CAUSE    OF   CANCER. 

This  lies  as  deep  as  the  concept  of  the  intra- 
atomic  corpuscle,  which,  growing  out  of  our  recent 
study  of  radium,  has  revolutionized  modern  physics. 
For  example : 

"Cancer  of  the  abdominal  skin  is  unknown  in 
Europe,  but  occurs  with  extraordinary  frequency 
in  Kasmir,  where  natives  wear  next  to  the  skin  an 
oven  containing  burning  charcoal." 

This  hot  oven  is  the  half-cause  of  this  special 
cancer,  restricted  to  Kasmir;  but  not  the  whole 
cause,  for  only  a  few  who  wear  the  oven  get  the 
cancer.     What  is  the  other  cancer  element? 

Likewise,  chewing  betel-nut  in  Ceylon  and  India 
brings  a  great  frequency  of  cancer  of  the  inside  of 
the  mouth  almost  exclusively  in  these  regions. 
But  the  majority  chew  with  impunity;  another 
element  must  obtain  with  the  few  who  acquire 
cancer  therefrom. 

A  hundred  sewing  women  may  each  prick  a 
finger  the  same  number  of  times,  but  irritation 
brings  cancer  only  to  the  non-immune  few. 

So  with  all  the  locomotive  drivers,  and  all  the 
smokers  of  cigarette  or  short-stem  clay  pipe;  the 
identical  irritation  will  bring  the  actinic  or  radiant 
cancer — on  shin-bone  or  tongue,  respectively — only 
to  the  few  non-immune.  And  it  is  the  same  all 
through  the  list  of  irritations  from  which  cancer 
may  be  developed. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      107 

THE  CANCER  ELEMENT  ALONE  AND  NO  SPECIFIC 
IRRITATION. 

It  would  be  important  to  prove  that  specific  irri- 
tations have  to  be  added  to  the  basal  cancer  ele- 
ment to  make  cancer.  For  we  surely  could  avoid 
the  specific  irritations. 

It  may  be — let  us  hope  not — that  life's  exigencies 
would  always  furnish  sufficient  wear  and  tear  to 
develop  the  basal  element  of  cancer.  The  basal 
half-cause  may  thus  be  really  the  whole  cause. 

WHAT   IS    THE    BASAL   CANCER    ELEMENT? 

If  we  can  once  agree  that  age  is  a  condition  and 
not  a  date — that  one  can  die  of  acute  old  age  in 
childhood,  as  in  thymic  death — there  need  be  no 
exceptions  to  the  dogma  that  cancer  is  in  relation 
to  senescence. 

The  known  interrelations  between  the  internal 
secretions  of  the  body,  and  the  variation  between 
their  times  of  appearance  and  fading,  makes  this 
an  easy  conception. 

For  what  is  our  youth  if  it  be  not  the  integrity  of 
our  glandular  activities  with  their  "ferments?"  A 
man  may  be  no  older  than  his  arteries,  but  behind 
the  tubular  works  of  the  body  are  the  protecting 
internal  secretions. 

We  are  trustees  of  our  thymus  for  the  brief 
watch  of  our  childhood,  and  in  a  few  decades  we 
surrender  our  thyroid.  Life  is  a  progressive,  pro- 
portionate adjustment  of  cell  poise   to   changing 


108    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

conditions  of  internal  secretions — as  thymus  and 
thyroid,  sex  glands  and  suprarenals,  lessen  and 
finally  withdraw  their  special  secretions.  As  a 
gland  upon  a  platter  our  youth  is  automatically 
passed  onward  at  each  measurement  of  time,  and 
each  period  prints  itself  beyond  the  effacing  power 
of  cosmetic.  Puberty  and  the  climacteric — and 
then  the  skin  takes  the  pigment  the  hair  ought  to 
have. 

An  illness  may  put  a  man  to  bed  young,  and 
shortly  release  him  irrevocably  old.  Of  another  we 
predicate,  regardless  of  dates,  "  He  has  his  color- 
ing yet;  his  glands  are  working;  his  'ferments'  are 
still  with  him." 

One  has  failed  in  adjustment;  the  other  is  ad- 
vancing in  proper  proportions. 

FUNCTIONS     OF     THE     INDIVIDUAL     CELL     AND     THE 
SPECIAL   CELL   FERMENT. 

If  the  cell  has  not  five  senses,  it  has  five  func- 
tions. It  must  (a)  assimilate  and  excrete  to  nourish 
itself;  (b)  it  must  reproduce  itself;  (c)  it  must  per- 
form special  selective  function  according  to  its  class 
of  tissue;  (d)  it  must  help  to  keep  the  frontier  of  its 
own  tissue  class  inviolate;  (e)  and  it  must  make  its 
general  contribution  to  the  whole  organism. 

Besides  secreting  its  own  bile,  or  tears,  or  adre- 
nalin— according  to  kind — each  must  make  a  gen- 
eral vital  contribution  to  the  whole.  The  aggre- 
gate vitality  is  the  sum  of  the  units. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      109 

For  this  purpose  each  cell  has  a  store  of  albumen 
and  a  special  cell  ferment,  and  in  this  latter  lies 
all  the  distinctive  quality  of  the  cell.  And  the 
provable  law  governing  the  better  known  internal 
secretions  presumptively  governs  the  special  dis- 
tinctive secretion  of  the  individual  cell. 

Therefore  altered  cell  poise,  as  the  basal  cause 
of  cancer,  probably  means  disproportionate  change 
in  its  own  ferment  secretion  as  well  as  the  changes 
in  those  internal  secretions  whose  cycles  are  better 
known,  and  provable. 

THE   BORDER-LINE   BETWEEN    SPECIAL   TISSUES. 

One  of  the  duties  of  a  cell  is  to  guard  the  fron- 
tier line  of  its  own  special  tissue.  The  lip  must  not 
extend  over  the  face;  the  uterine  mucous  mem- 
brane must  not  proliferate  over  the  vaginal  cervix. 
The  connective  tissue  must  not  extend  into  the 
pulp;  the  cataract  must  not  invade  the  eye;  nor 
the  hardening  process  creep  into  the  artery. 

The  excrescence  grows  out  over  the  surround- 
ing tissue  as  much  from  failure  of  repelling  power 
as  from  overcharge  of  energy  in  the  growth. 
Improper  timing  and  disproportionate  atrophy  of 
one  tissue  puts  it  at  a  disadvantage  when  facing 
contiguous  tissue— or  its  antagonistic  inhibiting 
relation. 

A.nd  tissue  frontiers — between  pulp  and  con- 
nective tissue,  between  gland  and  capsule,  between 
fiber  and  sheath — are  the  almost  exclusive  seats  of 
cancer. 


110    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

A   DISCERNIBLE   MINUS    IN    THE    CANCER    CELL. 

There  is  only  space  here  to  cite  the  role  of  the 
chromosomes  in  cell  life — especially  cell  reproduc- 
tion. Likewise,  only  simple  mention  can  be  made 
of  the  difference  in  thermic  and  actinic  color  re- 
lation, respectively,  as  shown  by  stainability,  pre- 
sented by  the  cell  representing  sex  from  the  female 
and  the  cell  representing  sex  from  the  male.  For 
example,  the  ovum  cell  differs  from  the  sperm  cell, 
not  only  in  the  quality  of  its  color  relation — one 
being  thermal  and  the  other  chemic — but  in  that 
the  male  cell  has  exactly  one  less  chromosome  than 
the  female  cell.  Search  for  the  lost  chromosome, 
therefore,  may  solve  the  problem  of  sex  deter- 
mination. 

Now  the  cancer  cell  instead  of  being  just  one 
chromosome  minus — as  the  male  cell  is  less  than 
the  female — contains  just  half  the  number  of 
chromosomes  shown  by  the  normal  cell.  Do  the 
lost  chromosomes  bear  any  relation  to  the  problem? 

This  minus  is  visible  and  accords  with  the  logic 
of  the  cancer  situation. 

RELATION  OF  THE  FERMENTS  TO  CANCER. 

Two  years  ago  the  writer  drew  attention  to  the 
relation  between  thyroid  and  cancer.  Director 
Bashford  says  on  this  subject: 

"The  trout  is  peculiary  liable  under  certain  con- 
ditions, to  a  general  hyperplasia  of  the  thyroid. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      111 

We  have  records  of  2000  cases,  in  many  of  which 
true  carcinomata  have  supervened,  as  shown  on 
the  slide." 

At  the  same  time  the  present  writer  outlined 
how  isomeric  attractions  and  repulsions  are  related 
to  blood  pressure  and  quality  and  the  internal 
secretions.  This  is,  presumptively,  the  process  in 
the  individual  cell,  viz.: 

"Pasteur  discovered  the  dimorphism  of  the 
double  tartrate  crystal.  One  isomer  in  solution  is 
dextrorotatory  in  the  spectroscope;  the  other  is 
levorotatory.  That  is,  one  of  these  varieties  of  the 
same  thing  turns  the  polarized  light  to  the  right, 
the  other  turns  it  to  the  left.  As  a  laboratory  test, 
to  separate  these  two  diverging  forms  of  the  same 
thing,  they  were  subjected  to  certain  fermentative 
tests.  The  yeast  plant  ferment  was  found  to  act  on 
the  left  isomer,  while  the  ferment  of  the  mold  acted 
upon  the  right  solution.  Please  stick  a  pin  in  this 
fact;  it  has  a  vital  bearing  on  what  follows.  The 
left-hand  isomer,  susceptible  to  the  yeast  ferment, 
is  indifferent  to  the  mold  ferment;  and  the  right- 
hand  isomer,  susceptible  to  the  mold,  is  unacted 
upon  by  the  yeast  plant. 

Now,  if  the  carbon  atom  were  symmetrical,  and 
carbon  existed  only  as  diamond,  we  would  freeze 
to  death  in  winter.  So  with  our  food  stuff.  If  the 
carbon  atom  should  suddenly  become  symmetrical, 
existing  only  in  its  left-hand  isomer  while  our 
digestive  ferments  attack  only  the  right-hand 
isomer,  or  -vice  versa,  we  would  likewise  starve 
to  death.  With  warehouses  full  of  levo-albumins, 
levo-carbohydrates,  famine  would  still  stalk  the 
land,  because  our  digestive  ferments  could  no  more 


112    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

change  them  into  assimilable  substance  than  they 
now  can  the  granite  of  the  mountains. 

Further,  and  of  transcending  importance  to  life 
— for  without  the  fact  there  would  be  no  life — this 
very  powerlessness  of  our  digestive  ferments  to  act 
upon  the  levo-albumins  of  the  human  body  is  per- 
haps the  basal  reason  why  the  human  stomach 
does  not  digest  its  own  walls." 

Coalescing  capacity  with  this,  and  coalescing  in- 
capacity with  the  other,  isomer  of  the  protoplasm 
atom  is  probably  the  basis  of  intracell  action  and 
the  tissue  frontier  guards. 

THE  FERMENTS  AND  BLOOD  PRESSURE;  BLOOD 
PRESSURE  AND  FUNCTION. 

More  easily  proved  is  this  relation.  All  the 
functions — cerebration,  salivation,  digestion,  etc. — 
start  and  stop  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  blood 
pressure.  Will-power  may  determine  it  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  but  the  real  regulators  of  blood  press- 
ure are  the  glands  that  secrete  the  stuff — respect- 
ively vasoconstrictor,  vasodilator. 

Leaving  aside  the  hemolytic  action  of  the  great 
glands  like  the  spleen — whose  blood  dissolving 
power,  when  in  disorder,  quickly  blanches  the 
organism,  as  in  Graves'  disease,  leukemia,  pernicious 
anemia,  and  kindred  diseases  which  seem  pre- 
cancer steps — let  us  see  what  is  known  of  the  re- 
lation between  the  internal  secretions  and  blood 
pressure. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      113 


THE    INTERNAL   SECRETIONS. 

The  following  is  abstracted  from  "  Internal  Secre- 
tions,"* by  Professor  Oliver  T.  Osborne,  of  Yale: 

"The  pituitary  body  secretes  vasoconstrictor 
stuff.  ...  It  seems  probable  that  in  every  case 
of  gigantism  the  pituitary  body  hypersecretes.  . 
.  .  The  thyroid  secretes  vasodilator  stuff.  .  .  . 
The  thyroid  secretion  has  been  shown  to  exert  pro- 
found influence  on  the  secretion  of  the  pancreas.  . 
.  .  It  should  be  emphasized  that  disturbances  of 
the  interrelations  between  the  ductless  glands, 
whether  by  disturbed  secretion  of  one  or  more  of 
them,  .  .  .  may  sufficiently  disturb  the  pancreatic 
secretion  to  cause  glycosuria,  and  yet  no  apparent 
disease  of  the  pancreas  be  found  on  autopsy. 

"The  suprarenals  secrete  vasoconstrictor  stuff. 
...  A  proper  amount  seems  necessary  to  the 
normal  development  and  health  of  the  red  blood 
corpuscles.  ...  A  preparation  of  ovaries  con- 
tains a  vasodilator  substance.  .  .  .  When  both 
ovaries  are  removed  .  .  .  various  symptoms  occur 
which  are  evidently  distinctly  due  to  the  removal 
of  the  ovarian  internal  secretion.  .  .  .  Cancer 
of  the  breast  may  cease  to  grow  after  a  double 
ovariotomy;  this  before  the  menopause.  .  .  .  Os- 
teomalacia has  been  arrested  by  the  removal  of  the 
ovaries;  hence  this  may  be  due  to  disturbed 
ovarian  secretion,  perhaps  an  oversecretion.  .  .  . 
Ovarian  substance  has  been  administered  in  Graves' 
disease  with  some  apparent  success.    .    .  . 

"There  is  a  secretion  from  the  testicles  which  is 
necessary  for  the  normal  development  and  health  of 
the  male.  .  .  .  Castration  before  puberty  cause9 
jien  and  animals  to  grow  taller  than  normal,  and 

*  Jour.  A.  M.  A.,  February  26,  1910. 


114    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 


to  grow  fat.  ...  If  there  is  thyroid  insufficiency 
the  testicles  do  not  develop  properly,  and  if  the 
testicles  are  removed  the  thyroid  remains  small. 
The  testicle  contains  vasodilator  stuff. 

"  The  parotid  shows  an  unexplained  relation  to 
the  sexual  glands — there  is  the  ever  frequent  oc- 
currence of  the  infection  of  mumps  causing  the 
peculiar  metastasis  to  the  testicles  and  ovaries. 

"The  thyroid  is  most  fully  developed  and  active 
from  the  age  of  puberty  to  the  age  of  forty-five. 
From  that  time  its  secretion  is  decreased  until  the 
gland  atrophies  in  old  age.  Sexual  excitement 
increases  thyroid  secretion,  and  when  there  is 
hyosecretion  of  the  thyroid  sexual  desire  is  lost." 

Note  the  antagonisms:  Vasoconstrictor  inhibits 
vasodilator.  Hypersecretion  of  pituitary  body 
grows  a  giant,  whereas  an  excess  of  thyroid  secre- 
tion checks  development  of  the  epiphyses  and 
makes  the  dwarf. 

The  relation  between  the  vasodilator  glands  is 
very  close,  and  they  begin  fading  about  the  same 
time.  The  vasoconstrictor  stuff  from  adrenals  and 
pituitary  body  apparently  outlasts  the  vasodilator 
supply.  Not  to  reduce  humanity  to  a  sweetbread, 
we  may  yet  say  that  pleasure,  joy,  blandness, 
youth,  are  vasodilator  stuff;  while  anxiety,  fear, 
acidity,  acerbity,  and  age  are  vasoconstrictor  stuff. 

THE    CONSTRICTOR   QUALITY  OF  CONNECTIVE  TISSUE. 

The  "pulp"  of  cell  or  organ — like  the  pulp  of 
an  orange — is  its  distinctive  dynamic  part,  whereas 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      115 

the  connective  tissue  is  the  frame-work  holding  the 
motor  in  working  position. 

An  exact  harmonizing  of  the  picture  of  vasocon- 
strictor overcoming  vasodilator  is  shown  in  the 
hardening  processes  of  age.  The  connective  tissue 
constricts  the  elastic  pulp  tissues  of  the  arteries, 
of  the  brain,  of  the  heart,  the  liver,  the  kidney — 
just  as  by  metaplasia  true  bone  tissue  is  formed  in 
the  choroid  of  the  eye  which  has  lost  its  function. 
The  acids  bite  off  the  enamel  of  the  teeth,  extend 
the  womb  out  over  the  vaginal  cervix,  extend  the 
erosion  from  the  vagina,  in  senile  vaginitis,  out 
over  the  vulva. 

What  is  this,  also,  but  failure  of  contiguous  ter- 
ritory to  guard  its  frontier?  A  disproportionate, 
premature  or  late,  action  of  one  set  of  secretion 
accents  the  quality  of  its  inhibiting  antagonizing 
secretion.  We  may  therefore  discover  that  cancer 
is  a  question  of  internal  secretion  dosage. 

THE  QUESTION  OF  DOSAGE  AND  THE  PRE- 
CANCER STATE. 

Remembering  that  "  the  x-ray  will  cure  some 
cancers  and  will  cause  some  cancers,"  remember- 
ing that  internal  secretion  excess  or  defect  can 
grow  a  giant  or  dwarf;  remembering  also  that  elec- 
tricity will  stimulate  a  muscle  and,  contradictorily, 
under  proper  dosage,  will  likewise  induce  general 
anesthesia, — we  can  better  realize  the  importance 
of  dosage. 

As  fat  cells  and  connective-tissue    cells    have 


116    THE  CANCER  PROBLEM  OR 

neither  the  selective  ferment  nor  function  of 
"pulp"  cells,  their  substitution  for  "pulp"  cells  of 
course  reduces  the  production  of  the  selected  in- 
ternal secretions.  Just  as  the  obese  are  absolutely 
as  well  as  relatively  deficient  in  blood  quantity,  so 
must  the  change  to  the  non-selective  cell  result  in 
absolute  lessening  of  ferment  production. 

If  we  can  increase  the  pulp  cells  by  use — as  we 
can  muscle  cells,  for  example — does  this  not  of 
necessity  increase  the  supply  of  special  cell  ferment 
to  go  therewith?  And  might  not  an  extra  supply 
of  cell  ferment — could  we  separate  it  and  give  it 
as  we  daily  give  the  larger  gland  substances — act 
protectively  against  the  connective  tissue  invasion, 
as  thyroid  substance  acts  against  obesity? 

Does  the  ascitic  fluid  used  by  Hodenpyle — from 
his  self -cured  patient — contain  any  of  the  extruded 
special  cell  ferment? 

I  ask  the  hematologists:  Is  the  blood  from 
which  is  deducted  the  vasodilator  stuff  of  the 
thyroid  and  sex  glands  and  the  vasoconstrictor 
stuff  (>,,  he  adrenals  the  same  as  the  blood  from 
which  no  such  deduction  is  being  made — because 
of  failing  or  failed  glands?  Is  not  the  retention  of 
these  unlifted  secretions  in  the  blood  as  abnormal 
as  the  retention  of  urea  in  renal  insufficiency? 

Probably  the  secret  of  the  precancer  stage  lies  in 
the  relation  between  altered  cell  poise  and  this  in- 
ternal secretion  timing  and  dosage. 

Practical  Deductions. — If  cancer  cannot  be 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MALIGNANCY      117 

caught,  cannot  be  inherited,  but  must  be  grown, 
and  if  its  growth  depends  upon  precancer  condition 
plus  a  specific  irritation,  we  have  help  for  the 
community. 

A  purposeful  scrutiny  by  one  who  knows  the 
rhythm  of  the  inevitable  readjustments  in  cell 
poise  may  allow  corrections  of  internal  secretion 
timing  and  dosage.  As  glands  regulate  internal 
secretion,  and  as  internal  secretions  govern  blood 
pressure  and  quality,  and  as  these  later  determine 
function  and  longevity — herein  is  the  field  of  pre- 
cancer work.  Glands  have  been  awakened  from 
torpor;  more  "ferments"  have  remoistened  the 
dry  channels;  more  pulp  has  been  regrown  be- 
tween the  constricting  frame-work  tissue.  A  dose 
of  aconite,  even — vasodilator — has  sometimes  soft- 
ened a  pulse  and  poured  out  through  the  kidneys 
a  large  increase  of  urea,  as  though  releasing  the 
kidney  "pulp"  from  constriction  to  action.  These 
results  are  all  the  more  striking  where  one  set 
of  glands  falls  under  or  outruns  the  ordained  pro- 
portion and  progression  in  senescence. 

While  the  general  wear  and  tear  of  life  is  still 
beyond  our  reach,  the  specific  irritations  which  are 
the  half -causes  of  cancer  can  surely  be  controlled. 
Give  the  sewing  woman  knowledge  and  a  thimble. 
Lengthen  the  knowledge  and  short-stem  clay  pipe 
of  the  smoker.  Teach  the  locomotive  driver  to 
shield  his  shins  as  the  x-ray  operator  screens  his 
ferments  from  the  deadly  ray.     The  betel-nut  need 


118  THE  CANCER  PROBLEM 

not  be  chewed,  and  the  hot  oven  on  the  abdomen 
may  be  insulated  if  it  must  be  carried  hot. 

CUT  QUICKLY  OR  NOT  AT  ALL  IN  CANCER. 

Prompt  surgery  may  remove  chronic  irritations, 
ulcers,  irritated  moles,  benign  tumors — all  of  which 
Crile  calls  "potential  cancers."  But  surgery  should 
be  early,  and  should  not  wait  until  cachexia 
shows.  It  is  because  of  the  precancer  condition 
that  local  heat,  electricity,  local  juices  and  late 
surgery  will  all  frequently  fail.  Though  one  local 
spot  be  removed,  another  will  grow,  the  basal 
cause  remaining  the  same. 

Thus  purposeful  scrutiny,  effective  treatment, 
and  prompt  surgery  enable  us  to  control  abso- 
lutely the  special  irritant  half-causes  of  cancer. 
The  unsuspecting  eighty  thousand — probably  a 
million  in  the  world — marked  for  hopeless  cancer 
in  six  months  should  know  this.  I  hazard  the 
belief  that  many  could  be  saved  if  they  knew  it 
and  acted  upon  the  knowledge. 

And  as  to  the  basal  half-cause  of  cancer,  this 
much  can  now  be  positively  stated  from  our  new 
knowledge  of  the  reparative  processes  of  the  organ- 
ism: Every  cancer  patient  at  the  start  furnishes 
a  partial  cure  of  his  own  cancer.  What  can  we 
add  to  make  it  a  whole  cure? 

It  is  one  of  the  maxims  of  synthetical  medicine 
that  An  incurable  thing  may  sometimes  be  cured 
by  curing  all  the  other  curable  things  in  sight. 


